T42 Audio Issue

[snabjab]

I'm having an audio issue with my T42 (1.8/1GB/80GB) that I started discussing in the linked thread (beginning at the very bottom of the page) and which was never resolved. I'll try to sum up the entire problem so you don't need to reference that disaster of a thread.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=90

The audio issue I WAS having was that when downloading from the internet using my wireless connection, MP3s played in itunes would be distorted - blipping noises would appear constantly until the download was finished. This problem has never gone away and has all of a sudden gotten worse. Now when I'm playing songs in itunes if I browse the web on any kind of graphics-heavy page the music will stop playing. The song keeps progressing in itunes, but I need to pause and restart in order to get it to work again. And then of course it will just be interrupted the second I go to a resource-demanding page. I can stop this problem by using Notebook Hardware Control to change from dynamic switching to max performance. With the processor going at the full 1.8ghz the music continues to play, though there is some occasional distortion. Now when using the normal settings (dynamic switching) while playing MP3s through winamp instead of itunes (the latter being a much more resource-hungry program) the music will not stop playing as it does in itunes but rather just do the blips of distortion as used to happen in itunes. I am not runing a huge number of programs - just itunes, thunderbird, firefox.

Any ideas on what the problem might be?

[snabjab]

Well it turns out that switching to Max Performance really doesn't solve the issue - the audio will still cut out. This is a very strange problem, especially considering that no significant hardware or software changes have taken place which might be responsible for the change.

[noetus]

Have you tried using different audio-out plugins in Winamp?

[noetus]

Have you tried using different audio-out plugins in Winamp?

[snabjab]

I have not, but winamp works relatively well. The major problems are in iTunes and there seems to be no obvious reason why I should be having these issues.

[snabjab]

So no one has any idea then?

[sugo]

Which WiFi card / drive do you use? My intel 2200bg / driver 8.1.0.28 never caused iTunes to pause.

[christopher_wolf]

I have the Intel 2915ABG and everything is fine with iTunes. It could also be a issue specific to how iTunes buffers and plays the music through the net connection on the Thinkpad.

[snabjab]

I've got the IBM wireless.

I'm happy to report that I installed an updated audio driver I found on the IBM support page and I'm ready to tentatively say that the problem is solved. It's very strange how this problem progressed - first it was just occasional distortion but the music would never stop playing altogether. All issues seem to be resolved now, but only time will tell. I've never had great luck with drivers providing an easy and complete fix to problems but this just goes to show that checking for updated drivers is always a good first step.

[snabjab]

It looks like my reserve was justified.

The problem isn't quite gone, but I've at least identified the source: in connecting to my network I can login with my user/pass through an HTML gateway or I can use a VPN connection with the Cisco client. I have no problems when using the normal HTML authentication, but I still get the skipping when connected through the VPN. This isn't a huge deal since I can access what I need most of the time without the VPN, but now that I've isolated the problem any ideas on why this should be happening?