My turn for odd sound problems...

smarteyeball · Oct 14, 2008

My sister just dropped off her Compaq Presario F500 (F551AU) Laptop today claiming that the "sound had suddenly stopped" working. Lo and behold, it had. The laptop has Vistax86 with SP1. The sound card is a Conexant HD audio.

Starting with the obvious, I checked all the sound levels. They were okay. Nothing muted, volume was up etc. Device manager has no errors. When testing mp3, Cd's, the level meter in Right-click volume/ playback devices appears as if it's working normally, except for the total lack of sound. The really odd thing however, is that in the recording devices screen, the microphone level is stuck permanently on full:

Mic - permanent
ImageShack - Hosting :: croppercapture2fr1.jpg

Working -no sound
ImageShack - Hosting :: croppercapture3ka5.jpg

Unfortunately, disabling the recording devices makes no difference.

Steps taken so far:

Uninstalled/deleted/re-installed different driver versions. No dice
Removed Vista Codec pack/Installed beta Codec pack. No dice
Checked all the volume levels I could find. No dice
Tested the speakers in Bios by making them beep. They work.

I have no idea where to look next. Hopefully someone else has some ideas.

Thanks

smarteyeball · Oct 14, 2008

Apart from making the Bios beep, is there any other way to test if a sound card is working without formatting?

NormCameron · Oct 15, 2008

Only thing I could find that seemed real was PassMark SoundCheck - Download software to test your PC sound card

smarteyeball · Oct 15, 2008

Thanks Norm. Soundcheck certainly gave the appearance that the sound is working, but still not a peep. Dxdiag shows no errors either.

I'm just going to reformat the bugger and hope for the best.

Since I can make the speakers beep in bios, does this only prove that the speakers themselves are fine and not the soundcard? Or do laptop speakers require the soundcard to actually function? If I could easily open the thing up and have a squiz, I'd have an easier answer. Unforunately the laptop has an extended warranty and I don't think my sister will appreciate me voiding it.... If it were mine however, different story

smarteyeball · Oct 15, 2008

F***!

A reformat made NO difference. Still no sound and the MIC level is still cranked. It looks like it's hardware. What a POS. It's already been sent in for repairs once (wireless quit working, mainboard replaced) and that took over 6 weeks and a LOT of flapping about. It looks like I'm going to have to deal with the utterly incompetent "techs" at Harvey Norman again. The most frustrating part is that the authorised repairer is only one suburb away, yet I HAVE to take it to the store before any action is taken. It's not even my bl**dy laptop. Grrr:sa:

Sorry, I'm a little het up. Especially since I could have saved myself a heap of trouble by not reformatting the damn thing.

NormCameron · Oct 15, 2008

Sorry mate. s**T has happened, I guess. I am pretty sure the beep is independant of the sound card.

Dwarf · Oct 15, 2008

Hi Patrick,

Sorry to hear that you are still having problems with your sister's laptop. However, perhaps this is a clue:

smarteyeball said:
It's already been sent in for repairs once (wireless quit working, mainboard replaced) ...

If you are feeling brave, then have a look at the following links:
Compaq Presario F551AU Notebook PC*
Compaq Presario F551AU Notebook PC: Manuals*
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01095493.pdf

With reference to the last link, on page 52 (60 in the PDF document) has this information regarding the audio module. It is possible that the connectors were not correctly reattached when the laptop was previously repaired.

You should also refer to the rest of this document for details on the disassembling and reassembling the laptop. Note that you should check whether your sister wants you to do this before you start, but if she gives you permission it would save a good deal of time and expense (should take you no more than 2-3 hours, rather than the 6+ weeks it took the so-called "techs").

smarteyeball · Oct 15, 2008

NormCameron said:
Sorry mate. s**T has happened, I guess. I am pretty sure the beep is independant of the sound card.

The more I thought about it, the more I figured it was similar to a desktop.

The fact that it has previously been in for a service did raise a few red flags in my mind. Since it was working for me and stayed working after I'd given it back to my sister gave me false hope I think. I actually suspected that her fiance had been playing silly buggers with it and hadn't fessed up

With permission, I think I'll tackle disassembling it tomorrow. I'm sick of the sight of the thing ATM. I was reluctant to do it sooner because 1) I've never disassembled a laptop before and 2) It's not mine. There's always a first time for everything

Just a thought, if the soundcard itself is dead, would it still behave the way it has, or would it have shown up in Windows with errors? I don't really want to pull the thing apart, put it back together and find it's still broken. In that scenario, I think the laptop will be flying out the proverbial window

Thanks for the links Dwarf. They will come in very handy indeed.

On a side note, the wireless is working great, so they at least got something right

smarteyeball · Oct 16, 2008

UPDATE:

I admit defeat

I felt a little brave, so following the manual I started to disassemble the laptop. Unfortunately by the time it got to disassembling the screen I started to lose my nerve. In the back of my mind all I could hear was "warranty, warranty, if you f*** it, you'll have to pay for it". This wasn't helped by the fact that at the screen disassembly stage, there were 'replace part' stickers everywhere that I would have had to remove/break which would be clear evidence that I'd been inside it.

I nearly sh@t myself when I removed the keyboard ZIF connection. I thought I broke it. Never seen a ZIF connection before. I didn't know that it was just a ribbon

I do now.

So it's off to the repairers after all. sigh. On the plus side, if a part does need to be replaced, it should be covered by warranty. After all, I never touched it, did I?

Thanks again for the assistance all.

crimson7 · Oct 16, 2008

Seems like your sis got a lemon a buddy of mine has that same laptop and has never had a problem out of it so far. I hope the repair goes well and it does not come back with some "other" problem after the fact.

smarteyeball · Oct 16, 2008

Thanks Crimson. After a lot of googling around the time the wireless first went, a lot of people have had various problems with this model range. On the other hand, there are many like your bud that haven't had an issue. So yep, I think hers is a bit of a lemon

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