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Volume controls are sporadic

W530/W540/W541/W550 Series
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mbillau
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Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:38 am
Location: durham, nc

Volume controls are sporadic

#1 Post by mbillau » Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:47 am

Hello,
I have been using my new W530 for a few weeks now, and generally like it. However, I am having problems with the volume buttons. It seems that only sometimes I can use the actual buttons on the machine to change the volume up or down. Generally it fails when I watch youtube videos...I can hit the button once, but after that hitting it doens't do anything until I adjust the volume with the volume control display with the mouse. Once I use the software to change the volume one way or the other, the hardware keys start to work.

Has anybody else experienced this problem? I did a google search and found a thread where somebody was experiencing the exact same issue: http://208.74.204.134/t5/W-Series-Think ... d-p/863519

In that thread they talk about how it is a problem with Firefox and the Flash player plugin. Strange. The guy on that thread posted a workaround, but I have not been able to try it because I cannot find "mms.cgf". His instructions are as follows:
You can disable it by adding the line ProtectedMode=0 to
32-bit Windows: C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
64-bit Windows: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\mms.cfg
Source: https://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/i ... refox.html
I can't seem to find any .cfg files for Flash player...

I remember that when I first got the machine, none of the indicator lights would work and I had to reinstall the drivers (yes 5 minutes out of the box and I am reinstalling the drivers. Great job Lenovo). So I'm thinking *maybe* reinstalling the volume button drivers may help?

I am running 64bit windows 7. I guess I haven't noticed it this problem happens with Chrome or other browsers. Would it really matter though?

Thanks, please let me know what other information I should post.

mikemex
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Location: Coyoacan, Mexico

Re: Volume controls are sporadic

#2 Post by mikemex » Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:41 am

It's a common issue not specific to your model. Volume control is done in software by a driver and it doesn't seem to be very well written. Older models controlled the CODEC directly so it didn't matter what you were running.

Sounds like we should formally ask Lenovo to do a better job.
X301: SU9600 | 8GB | 1TB | WXGA+
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