M1330 Sound Woes...

m1330sound:

So yeah, my guess is we need a pretty serious fix -- motherboard and/or reinstall Windows.

cbz2298 wrote that he or she used "the factory image".  If that meant Factory Image Restore, that is the gold standard in software solutions. It restores Vista, the drivers and all of the configurations to the exact state they were in when the computer was built, so anything that does not now work that did originally work is due to a hardware problem. There is no question  of which driver to install or if another driver is "blocking" it or if the drivers were installed in the correct order, etc. That is why I said that Factory Image Restore is an excellent diagnostic tool. It leaves no doubt whether there is a software or hardware problem, as long as the user knows for sure that the problem did not exist when the computer was new.

In your case  the Dell Diagnostics audio tests should be sufficient to narrow it down to hardware or software. In your initial post in this thread you wrote, "Diagnostics seems to indicate the sound should be working fine, though."  Did you use Dell Diagnostics? Because if you used the PSA diagnostcs and heard the system sounds, that is not a sufficient test. Your symptoms could indicate a hardware failure, because even though the Sigmatel driver will not load, still the Intel HD audio driver in Vista should load by default and produce sound. What you are seeing in the Device Manager seems to be the "High Definition Audio Device" on the HD audio bus that is an audio driver that resides within the graphics card, not the Intel HD audio driver. (The audio protocol on the motherboard is "HD" so all audio ends up with "HD audio" in the name, making it confusing to know which is which.) If so, that would sort of explain why you can get HDMI audio.

If you did use and passed Dell Diagnostics audio tests then the problem should be in the software. I wonder if it could be in Vista since the Intel driver is not loading. Another thing that can mess up the audio is the modem. If it is turned off in the BIOS sometimes the system will not "see" the audio hardware and give the kind of error messages you get. But I think the M1330 has an external modem so I am not sure if its BIOS even has a modem setting, but as you said you updated and then reverted to the older BIOS, it might not hurt to check.

I got my sound fixed. Mine was a hardware issue. The resistance near the sound chip was broken, don't know how??? I soldered it and the sound was back again. Thanks to u all. Cheers

Glad you got it fixed..

The thing about Factory Image Restore as a diagnostic tool for audio is that it leaves no doubt about whether it is a hardware or software problem. In cases where using it does not get the audio working again then it is definitely a hardware problem. Even the nearly infallible audio tests in Dell Diagnostics are not as good because there are a couple of circumstances in which they will produce a false result.

Hi All,

Can I throw another twist into here?

I have the dreaded "Red X" on my speaker.

The Sigmatel driver is loaded and is happy.

BUT! ...the System Speaker driver says there is no driver loaded (Control Panel>System>Speaker>Properties).  However, the install driver button is grayed out. 

When I try to do an update driver, it says the driver that is already installed is just fine and is up to date...........except the speaker properties says there is no driver installed!

I have tried both the disable and the uninstall of the system speaker, both of which come back and are rediscovered when a "search for new hardware" is done.  Same result as above with the driver (apparently it wasn't re-installed, since it thinks it is already there).

Any ideas?  Anyone know which SPECIFIC driver to delete (not the Sigmatel) for the system speakers, so it can get re-associated (in the registry, perhaps)?

Anything else to try?

Thanks in advance,

Ray

I think I have the same problem.  Sound stopped a few months ago - I may have dropped it off a low table-  anyway no sound at all but I do hear sound when I plug in the earphones.   So can you be more specific in how you found and fixed it? please I could use somethinng like a tutorial for this.

Thanks!

I had the same problem, and sadly as it is, after wandering around with it the only solution was a 2 times clean windows install after formating.

OK, thanks the response! Sorry to hear about the hassle. I guess that's what I need to do...

Daveyc86:

Hi mate, i have had the same problem and solved it today.

 1)Download the Sigma driver and have it ready on your desktop

2) Go into the Control Panel > device manager > sound > click on the windows high def sound driver that is there, right click, uninstall driver .

3) the second its done start the install for the Sigma driver - it should complete as the microsoft driver was blocking it before, then restart when complete and you're away pal!

 

Let me know how you get on bud

Same exact problem as the original poster and this worked like a charm.  Thanks a lot Daveyc86, great advice!!

No worries - its worked on all the dells I've since seen with this problem.

You just need to be quick when you start the install for the siga drivers or the windows ones will start re-installing again