Thinkpads Forum

I have new to me 770e with windows 2000. I cannot enable the
crystal wdm audio. Device manager reports 'firmware did not give
it the required resouces.' When I try to enable audio using the
configuration utility the utility refuses, saying the drivers are not
loaded properly.
Any suggestions?

Thanks

Chuck Kaufman

Sounds like you don't have an IRQ free for it. What's on IRQ 5?

Hi
Thanks.
Nothing on IRQ 5! 11 has cardbus controller, twice,
14 is primary IDE, 15 secondary, 1 is keyboard, 3 is com2
6 is floppy, 8 is clock, 13 is numeric processor and
12 is the mouse.

Next step?

Chuck

There are 4 separate entires under Crystal WDM in device manager. I tried to set the
resources manually for the first of them.:

It accepts IRQ 5, (actually chooses it itself based
on 'basic configuration 0000' ) and chooses acceptable memory locations
in 2 of the 3 input/output range lines. (0530-0537 and 0220-0233)
The third of these it assigns 0388-038B
but with a no-go symbol, saying that that range is used by 'Motherboard resources.'

When I look under management, sysem information, hardware resources, memory,
motherboard resources are assigned 0000-9FFF (and almost everything else).

Now that excludes 0388-038B allright, but it also excludes the other two ranges.
But the manual resource assignment does _not_ mark those two as
unacceptable.

Chuck

I own a 600e (no I don't know any of the particulars further than 600e).
I installed windows xp on it and I also have issues with the crystal audio.
I found that the best way to keep sound drivers working is NOT to turn off but to put the machine into standby.
if you look for crystal WDM audio codec and update the drivers this is what to do.
install from a list or specific location, don't search i will choose the drivers to install, install the crystal audio wdm codec and let it find the file itself. if you dont turn off and continue to use standby you will not lose your sound again!

Thanks for the solution! However .....
I'm not sure I followed your directions correctly but I tried and
did not succeed. Even if I had, the hardware is quite normal so
it seems to me there ought to be a way that will persist
through power-off.

Chuck

Format and reinstall the os, sounds like a dll deleted itself, try uninstalling all the sound drives, restart and windows should pick it up and reinstall.
try that first if problems persist format-reinstall

Thanks. Sounds rough. I removed all the devices with Crystal WDM in their names
and rebooted. The os found the new hardware, installed the drivers, and
put things back just as they had been, No sound. There's an awful lot I don't
want to lose-no other way than format, reinstall...?

Well I bit the bullet and reinstalled, on another (empty) drive. The hardware report in device manager came out exactly the same as it had been the first time.
Still no sound (except for a few sobs).
Chuck

i know my way works. there are various references all over the internet to the fact that the thinkpad DON'T LIKE XP! Mine came with some sort of Windows 98 on it but when trying to update device drivers it decided a Legal windows 98 cd wasn't sufficient.
I'm amazed it even runs on mine (pII, 366, 128 ram, 6g hdd) . Memory is a big issue, it'd be lovely to find a USB device you can plug memory into to boost it.
I solved my lack of USB sockets by buying a usb powered 4-way hub.
I solved my small hdd issues by already owning a usb hdd 80gig. The only shame there is it's a darn same you can't update a motherboard to support usb 2.0.

My thinkpad was initially bought as a stop-gap when my pc died due to boot-issues I WAS going to buy a new hdd and start again with it but I just can't be bothered so I've learned to live with a slow Thinkpad.

Newest Bios...????

Fixes the sound issue with XP with the 770 series....

Greg St.L

Thanks Greg.

I think it's the latest BIOS. I know I checked when I got it
but can't recheck right now because it's temporarily out of my hands.
(Better a computer without sond than none at all.)

It's win2k, not xp, but the bios might be the problem anyway.

Chuck

Chuck, I'm tryin' hard to remember this stuff. .

Look very very carefully through your list of i/o ranges. . . is there something else, other than "Motherboard resources", that takes up that 0388-038B range?

What else have you got in that machine? A network card maybe?

I looked carefully and did not find anything else at those memory locations.

And the only other thing in it _is_ a network card (pcmcia, wired) . It works fine.

It had a DEVA (hardware mpeg decoder) but I took it out.

There isn't even a modem-which I was kind of surprised to discover when I got
the computer. There's a hole where the socket should be. Maybe that's a
clue-it has been removed (unless it's only the plastic blank, covering the hole
where the modem would be installed, that's missing) . I suppose there
was a reason for that and maybe it's related to the audio failure.

Audio did pass the ezstart birdie's test though.

Chuck