Thinpad 570 running Windows FLP with no audio

[Derkach99]

Hello,

I recently installed Windows FLP on a Thinkpad 570 I installed and updated all the drivers yet there is no sign of audio from it. If someone could help me with this it would be greatly appreciated.

[ozzymud]

Did you install the AC97 sound driver? Or is there a yellow question mark in device manager for it?

[Derkach99]

The sound card is installed correctly in the device manager. I have played with the volume controls on the keyboard but no luck. Also is there another driver that you can install that will see scrolling using the center blue button in Firefox 4?

[ozzymud]

Did you try the audio controls in windows, through either control panel or the tray speaker app?

You might check the hardware by booting to a linux CD. AC97 is pretty standard, Linux should easily reconize it, see if the sound works when booting from a live cd.

And buy making the blue 3rd button scroll... did you just let windows detect the mouse (Generic HID)? Or did you use the ibm driver?

[Majestic]

You could also run a test of the audio using the PC Doctor Diagnostic Diskette.

Here is a link to PC Doctor for the ThinkPad 570....

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-495KW2

[Derkach99]

I thank everyone for you help. I am going to try a diagnostics test and see what it reports.

[Derkach99]

Hello everyone,

I ran the test yesterday and I found that the sound car passed but when I tested the internel speaker no sound was made at any frequency. I also plugged in headphones during this test and I hear no sound. Any ideas?

As for the mouse I installed the driver from lenovo but Firefox refuses to scroll.

[Majestic]

If the speakers and head phones failed the PC Doctor Audio test then I would suspect the problem is hardware related. Did the 570 have sound prior to installing Windows FLP?

[ozzymud]

sound car passed but when I tested the internel speaker no sound was made at any frequency. I also plugged in headphones during this test and I hear no sound.

By internal speaker, are you meaning the one that beeps on errors? This is normally seperate from the sound card and is not affected by headphones being plugged in.

I ran the test yesterday and I found that the sound car passed

You said the soundcard passed... did you hear sounds during that test?

[Unknown_K]

Speaker wires damaged or the capacitor in the music section is bad?

[Derkach99]

I saw the machine at work so I decided to pick it up and restore it with little or no cost. I installed windows FLP on it to find that there is no sound. The internal speaker I would imagine would relate to BIOS beep messages. When I ran the sound card test I heard no sounds coming from the computer. The computer also came with the docking station which appears to have nice sized speakers to it in which I am excited to test out.

[Majestic]

Yes, the interior motherboard speaker would be the one that sounds the BIOS beep messages.

If the system failed the PC Doctor test then it is time to open her up and double check inside. As previously mentioned by Unknown-K it could be a damaged hardware problem or something as simple as loose audio connector or card. According to the manual your system has an audio card which may have worked loose or it can be replaced if need be.

Here is a link to the HMM.....

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4793QA

[ozzymud]

It looks like from reading your test results you have 2 different issues:

Sound/speaker/headphones: This could be bad connections or bad hardware, this portion should output sound through the normal speakers or through headphones/external speakers... if it doesn't output through either, then I wouldn't suspect the internal speakers (the headphone jack is directly mounted to the sound board). So for this problem, either a loose connection between sound board<-->motherboard, or bad sound board, or bad motherboard.

Internal piezo "beep" "speaker": This has nothing todo with the sound card, you will not hear it through headphones, if this dont beep during bios test or like entering bios, then that is motherboard related.

So, as others suggested, you will need to get inside, re-seat all connections 1st, then re-test. Past that, the easiest "fix" is replacing with known good parts (much easier when you have more then one of the same machine, thus my addiction )

[Derkach99]

Oh, I did not realize that the sound card in this model was separate from the motherboard. :O How interesting. I will crack her open and take a look this weekend.

[ozzymud]

Yup, very normal thing for a lot of laptops, especially older ones... examples:

The soundcard is even swappable between all 760 models(which I am fond of )... The 760XD comes with the MWave which is nice for MIDI in windows... but Linux ain't too keen on... so I swap with ESS 1688 from lesser models like the 760EL, 760L or in a pinch a 760XL

I can also confirm at least one newer(non ibm) machine that has a daughterboard with sound/SD slot/USB port/Network port... 2 models i own of the Acer netbook.

I can't say for sure if yours is actually a daughter card, but even if built onto the motherboard, the "beep" speaker and the sound card are 2 different "modules" on the machine... either one can work while the other is dead.

Thus if you have a sound daughter card, and hear nothing from either, then you might have 2 boards bad.. motherboard(bios speaker) & soundcard(normal sound)... but for the latter, definately open it up and re-seat the connections/connectors... you will need to open it anyways in the case of bad boards.

[Derkach99]

Good news!

I took a look inside and it didnt take long for me to realize that the ribbon cable to the soundcard was not seated at all in the port but was just sitting on top of it. When I got the machine I was told that it was disabled yet I only found that the hard drive missing. When I poped in a hard drive that I had it booted up with no problem. I guess that disconnecting the sound card the soundcard was part of this process. I get both audio and BIOS beeps now.

I find that the speakers in the docking statoin to be rather loud and of good sound quality.

I thank everyone for your help.

[Majestic]

Glad to hear you've resolved the problem. Thanks for posting back with an update.

[ozzymud]

I thank everyone for your help.

Nice, another vintage machine lives on

[Derkach99]

All I need to find out now is how to get the scroll button to work under Firefox 4. However with the machine with just 192MB of ram I think Firefox 4 is a mistake.

[ozzymud]

Firefox Setup 2.0.0.20 is what I use on older machines, compatible with stable(not necessarily new) plug-ins, and runs quite nicely on older hardware.