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Audio problem with a M6400 laptop


kuja killer

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yes i took a few screenshots and there was nothing suspect as usual. :(

https://i.ibb.co/mFBmHxz/dpc-idle.png - this one is just sitting here idle...doing nothing not touching the keyboard, mouse touchpad, nothing whatsoever.

https://i.ibb.co/1MntGJv/dpc-testing-sound.png - this is when clicking/testing the sound when im clicking it slow (about once per second) hearing that very low/poor sound (just clicking the slider button on the main volume window there that i mentioned before)

https://i.ibb.co/SNjdLLk/dpc-testing-normal.png - this is when im clicking it really fast - at least 2 or 3 times per second where the sound is actually normal, until i let go of clicking or slowing down.

Edited by kuja killer
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damn i just dont know then. i really hate this. it's starting to fustrate me enough to not want to bother having that laptop anymore (not yet but getting there)

i tried the device manager method a minute ago of installing one of thos INF files from the realtek thing from earlier that Skorpios said.. about these dumb CAB files. i just picked the one that said HDA01 - i ignored that warning prompt about "your about to install drivers that may be imcompatible with your hardware" message cause i just didnt care anymore.

So after it installed it just said "driver could not start"  - so that realtek one didnt work i guess..

I'm seriously just going to probably try re-installing XP again and first thing install the IDT A01 before anything else period and see if that matters or not...probably will be a waste of time. I havent really done much at all on the laptop anyways yet...besides just the drivers and stuff.

This has never happened in the almost 20 years i've only ever used XP (across different laptops/PC's ...only this M6400 with this audio issue)

Edited by kuja killer
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What a coincidence. I have exactly same notebook and had EXACTLY same audio issues there. All sounds were muffled like you described. I am not sure what driver exactly fixed it, but it was one included in Snappy driver installer. I can check version someday but unfortunately I wont have laptop in my house as I gave it for one who needed XP laptop.

I know this is far from best fix  but I fixed it by using earlier downloaded copy of snappy driver installer,  then chose audio driver and installed it. I need to try confirm what version I installed once I get my hands on that laptop again.

I know what you thinking. Driver updaters are bad. That is true for 99% of them and even to this one if you use it wrong way. Snappy driver installer is legit in my experience as it is open source, it does not need internet connection after you downloaded drivers and indexes. Just keep in mind that only use that for audio driver or other missing driver as otherwise it may break stuff.

Here is real DL

https://sourceforge.net/projects/snappy-driver-installer/files/

For XP laptop that is very fast. Also it got nice large display. Shame dell default drivers are awful

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Okay i'll try that, i really do apprecaite the help. Yes it is a "muffled" type of sound that it sounds like. I was just starting to think last night if it had anything to do with this "andrea filter" thing that gets installed as part of the IDT audio. - Doesnt matter either when i force exit all the exe's in Task Manager related to the IDT and "andrea". Since the .sys and .dll's are loaded elsewhere anyway.

That andrea thing has 4 options, but of course they don't make a difference, but i wonder if that's what creates that low quality 16 khz muffle'd-ness or whatever. I dont know heh. I have no intention on using any microphones or headphones, which is what the purpose of that program for is... "i think" - as im not a twitch streamer or anything like that.

Yea i've never used any 3rd party driver installer programs ever before except one called "driver identifier" which just simply scans your system and sends you to a website with a giant list of version numbers....but most of the versions numbers listed for IDT were all higher than the dell ones and for Win Vista / 7 ..or entirly different laptop models - I'll try looking at the snappy driver

Do i get the latest snappy version R539 from there, or a specific older one ?

Edited by kuja killer
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2 hours ago, kuja killer said:

Do i get the latest snappy version R539 from there, or a specific older one ?

Regardless of what version you get, it downloads the latest indexes and driver packages. 

Run the program, let it download indexes and update itself, then when you start installing a driver it will download the package containing it.

 

P.S. and tell us the version of the working driver for future reference when you find it :D 

Edited by RainyShadow
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I only tried 4 of these so far...almost all of the ones on the list for the audio are non-dell brands again like HP, gateway, leveno so i didnt try any of those yet, after bad results from just trying 2 of the HP ones.

hp   6427 - wouldn't install
hp   6233 - no sound at all except only a constant high pitched buzzing

dell 6292 - alot of errors and crash - was a 6.x.x version so probably vista/7
dell 6285 - installed, but didnt fix the muffled crap :(

i did system restore after every test to go back to that original A01 6017 from the dell site. There's some 5800 or 5600 dell ones on the list, but they all say 6.10.x.x - so vista again i bet. Didnt try them at the momment.

if i can somehow know what Mr.Scienceman2000 had sometime if possible.

Edited by kuja killer
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Look for a 5.10.6324 or 6230.

And of course the Realtek driver didn't work, you have an IDT (Integrated Device Technologies). Use DM with the MUC IDT packages.

BTW, did Snappy tell you what audio hardware it thinks you have?

Edited by jumper
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The BIOS was already on A13 when i first got this laptop. I did try looking at the descrptions of all the past BIOS versions and didn't see anything mentioned about sound/audio. (like a12, a11, a10, etc)

I'll try those ones now Jumper

https://i.ibb.co/NT7HYT3/device-id-snappy.png
https://i.ibb.co/6HcbT2D/device-id-2.png

edit: okay well i don't know yet on either of those 2 versions cause both of them make this error message at the very end. "class installed denied request" which i've never seen before. I don't know why or what the deal is. When doing "dont search i'll chose what to install" until the Have Disk otion, and pointing to the INF file for the 6324 or 6230 ..they both show this:

https://i.ibb.co/nwrfzT3/error-msg.png

these dang CAB files are such a pain :( - is it cause i un-installed the sound first ?? I thought it would have been better to un-install the current sound driver always each time, before attempting a different version just in case so there's no conflicts.

edit 2: put the 6017 A01 sound back on then tried to go through the device manager update to either of those 2 versions above jumper said, still says that "denied request" at the end...sheesh.

Edited by kuja killer
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  • 1 month later...

Hello again, i've tried to deal with this in past few days after Mr.Scienceman2000 finally was able to check his version...unfortatently i was instantly depressed when he said it was 6285 which i already had previously tried with zero luck...the very first time from "snappy driver". - I tried again anyway. I re-installed XP SP3 all over from the start fresh (made sure to format/wipe out the drive and all that of course) --- as soon as i got to the Desktop for the first time - i create system restore point, installed the 6285 IDT version immediately before anything else period, which i had backed up earlier to a USB hard drive..

And of course it made zero difference period. No change, sound still horribly low quality, everything i already described. So that was a complete waste of time, i knew it wouldn't work. :( And neither did the original 6017 either obviously.

I did more google searching for hours and hours, read some things about "device sharing and IRQ's being shared" - checked device manager and sort by "resources by type" - the IDT audio is shared with 2 USB entries...tried disabling the USB ones..and literally every single freaking thing possible - every single usb hub/port/PCI, all network stuff, cards, readers, dvd, all the "system board", "high precision event timer"...still nothing changes the stupid audio.

Tried going into Direct X diagnostics (start -> run -> dxdiag) and tried every option on the hardware sound accleration slider including "emulated" - no difference - tried the same thing on the regular Sound/Audio devices (advanced tab, performance) tried all those otions, no difference

Tried editing a crap load of entries in registry editor where the driver settings were, took screenshots before of all the settings. And 1 by 1 i swapped registry entries from 0 to 1, or 1 to 0 ...reboot PC every single time to test....i rebooted at least 50 or so times doing this, not joking... no difference. There was 1 registry entry i saw called "CPL_SaveExtraPower" or something... default value was 1, so i tried 0 ...reboot... no difference.

DPC latency checker is between 1600 to 4000 "us" seconds while im trying to test this crap.

https://i.ibb.co/hYkMzmz/idt-new-install.png

What i dont really understand is why the audio will actually act "normal" only at very specific momments like when im clicking the slider button on volume very fast, or say if i open the "test hardware" button from sound/audio devices (in Voice Tab) ..."only" while the window has a progress bar on the screen, as soon as that's finished, it's instatly poor again, or only if there's some program that's reliing on audio, game/video.. it'll be normal ...but close it and it's crap. Why is there some sort of power saving thing going on, editing that 1 registry entry did nothing, and nothing works on the IDT or Andrea Filter options.

i tried looking through a couple of these threads about "modded" drivers here...but every single file in these peoples posts are on that website which dont exist anymore. All 404 not found, nothing archived on "way back machine" website.

https://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/144-idtsigmatel-support/

Do i just quit and get rid of this worthless laptop now already ?? is there ANYTHING left to try ?? :(

Edited by kuja killer
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So does that mean i have to actually have the wifi turned "on" to test this this ? i've already had it turned off, and disabled ...already had tried that several times before from both in XP and from BIOS...disabled every single WLAN/WWLAN, wifi switch, catcher, everything single option related to those and it didnt do anything to the audio..

So i have to install the wifi drivers and turn it on ? cause im real confused there. :( it already didnt help with it being off or on before already anyways.

By the way that page says "sigmatel" while this M6400 is "IDT" so i doubt 99.9% it's going to matter.

I'll try getting some screenshots of all the registry settings from this audio crap soon. I didnt try all the ones that have random hex numbers like 629DE or 7B49 since i dont have a clue what any of these mean or do, but i did try each and every single one that had a "1" or "0" hexcidecimal number that i mentioned earlier. :( Thats why i rebooted dozens and dozens of times between each test.

I seriously want to take a video and put it right up against the laptop speakers so i could show you guys exactly what I mean about this "muffled" low-quality sounding...power saving whatever-the-crap is happening. I dont have a video camera of my own right now sadly.

Edited by kuja killer
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