T43p ongoing audio problem

[Bigeyedphish]

I've had my T43p for just over a year now. This has probably happened six times before, with the last time the only solution being to reinstall XP. Just in the middle of working (no new software, changes, etc) the audio will cut in and out and become extremely garbled, sometimes like a skipping record. This is for all music, the audio for movies, and windows sound effects. the first four or five times reinstalling the driver would fix it. Like I said, last time i had to reinstall windows. I don't have time to do that again everysingle time this happens....I've already reinstalled the driver multiple times and updated the bios...still no luck.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thanks for the help!

[GomJabbar]

Are your drives using one of the DMA modes?

Go to Device Manager and check IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers > Primary IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel. Generally the Primary IDE channel is used for your hard drive, and the Secondary IDE channel is used for the optical drive. Both should be using DMA. If they are using PIO, that may be your problem.

[Bigeyedphish]

thanks for the reply ...and....
Here's what it says:

Primary IDE channel Properties
Device 0

transfer mode: DMA if available
current transfer mode: PIO Mode

Device 1
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
current transfer mode: Not Applicable

Secondary IDE Channel Properties
Device 0
Transfer Mode: DMA if avail.
Current trans. mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2

Device 1
Transfer Mode: DMA if avail.
Current trans. Mode: Not Applicable


For all 4, it says Device Type: Auto Detection, but thats grayed out for both the Device 0 (primary and secondary)



does that tell you anything?[/b]

[GomJabbar]

Your hard drive is working with a bottleneck. You should be able to fix this. What I have done in the past is go to Device Manager, right-click and uninstall everything under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, everything under Disk drives, and everything under DVD/CD-ROM drives, then reboot. Windows will rediscover the controllers and drives on reboot and install them properly.

Here is more info on this. http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

There are also some other posts in this forum regarding this if you care to search for them.

[Bigeyedphish]

thanks a lot for your help!

I'll post later tonight or tomorrow on how it went

[Bigeyedphish]

So I uninstalled the things you said, then rebooted....it didn't work the first couple times (i got a blue scrn when XP was booting saying there was something wrong). I then restarted using the last known good config. now it works perfect once again.

I clicked on the link you posted....and it said switching to PIO is windows response to a hardware problem....so it looks like i should get my TP looked at.

Thanks again!

[GomJabbar]

So I uninstalled the things you said, then rebooted....it didn't work the first couple times (i got a blue scrn when XP was booting saying there was something wrong). I then restarted using the last known good config. now it works perfect once again.

I clicked on the link you posted....and it said switching to PIO is windows response to a hardware problem....so it looks like i should get my TP looked at.

That's kinda scary. I didn't have that problem when I performed that procedure on my old 600E some months back. I am glad you got your computer back at least. I'll have to be careful about recommending that procedure again.

Take a look in Event Viewer for ATA/ATAPI errors or SMART errors. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer to see what has been logged.

There are some hard drive testing programs available. Here are two.
1. Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

2. Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool