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IBM Thinkpad T40 sound mysteriously stopped working

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@md0Cer

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Location
Denver, CO
Hello, I have a fairly old IBM Thinkpad T40. It is only about a year old, maybe not even. It has a 1.6GHz Banias Pentium M if that helps any.

Anyway, the sound mysteriously stopped working, but it does provide audio out of the headphone jack.

I checked the drivers and all, everything works fine and the sound that comes out of the headphone jack is fine. I opened it up to check out the speakers, and the speakers look to be in good condition and their wires are all intact and connected to the motherboard. I ran a diagnostic utility and it said the AC97 audio was fine, then when I ran a test on the speaker and could select through different frequency ranges, I got absolutely nothing. The speakers just don't work and I can't figure out why. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks. :)
 
Is there an external volume control or mute button that could be messing things up? I think the Thinkpads have a function key for mute (which may only disable the speakers and not headphones since it's a hardware and not a windows driven control). Time to pull out the manual ;).

BTW, your sig's a tad over the points limit.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=58341
 
Yep,.. try the little keys besides the big 'access IBM' blue key. Other than that, check the sound windows volume...
 
Yep, unlike Dell's this does not have an external volume knob. I used the controlls next to the large Access IBM button and have it unmuted and turned all the way up.

In the BIOS I set it to beep whenever I changed those controls. It beeps when I have headphones in, but the speakers are just plain dead.

I am almost thinking, you know when you plug headphones in it turns off the speakers somehow? Maybe whatever it is that is recognizing that is broken or has something jammed in it and it is always thinking headphones are plugged in?


As for my signature, I am sorry I don't have time now but I assure you I will have it fixed and legal within 12 hours.
 
@md0Cer said:
Yep, unlike Dell's this does not have an external volume knob. I used the controlls next to the large Access IBM button and have it unmuted and turned all the way up.

In the BIOS I set it to beep whenever I changed those controls. It beeps when I have headphones in, but the speakers are just plain dead.

I am almost thinking, you know when you plug headphones in it turns off the speakers somehow? Maybe whatever it is that is recognizing that is broken or has something jammed in it and it is always thinking headphones are plugged in?


As for my signature, I am sorry I don't have time now but I assure you I will have it fixed and legal within 12 hours.

well, I was gonna say it was a issue with service pack 2 ( had problems with sound on our churche's toshiba after installing sp2) but after I saw what you posted, that couldnt be it
 
shellshock said:
well, I was gonna say it was a issue with service pack 2 ( had problems with sound on our churche's toshiba after installing sp2) but after I saw what you posted, that couldnt be it


Thats it! After the SP2 upgrade the sound stopped working! The wireless would get stuck on "aquiring network address" as well.


How did you fix the sound on the Toshiba?
 
that's really odd. At my job I have a t40 that I use from time to time. It has SP2 on it and the sound works just fine. Have you tried to get the latest drivers from IBM? Maybe it is an issue with the upgarde to sp2 instead of just a clean sp2 install.

just a thought.

-N
 
Thanks for the responses guys, I might work with the drivers and see what I can come up with. As for the audio chipset, I am not sure. All I know is that it has AC97 integrated audio.

But the thing is, the sound works, but not out of the speakers. :-/

Maybe whatever disables the audio to the speakers when you plug headphones in is stuck somehow?
 
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