[CJohnson]

Hey there,

I have a toshiba laptop (pentium m) that has a screwed up sound driver for no good reason that I can think of. It has Sigma tel C major Audio for a driver and claims that all drivers, codecs, and hardware works properly which is a horrible lie. When I try recording with internal or external mics, there is a static like background noise added into the sonud during playback. Even worse, when I play mp3's, programs with sound, or any other type of CD or audio file on my hard drive, the sound will be fine at first, but after a certain amount of time, something starts distorting the pitch and tempo of the song or sound I'm playing making weird variations of the sound I'm trying to use. Eventually, the sound will shut off altogether. And if the computer enters sleep mode, it will return without the sound driver installed and I have to reboot the computer to get what limited sound I can. I have tried multiple times to reinstall the default driver off my toshiba utilities CD without success, and am running a virus scan as I type though nothing has come up. I cannot think of any new programs I installed within the last 9 months that would affect the sound in this way. So...any suggestions? Could this be a hardware problem or am I right in assuming it's the driver? If I don't figure it out soon I'm going to wipe my hard drive, but I'd really prefer not to so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

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what is the laptop model

What happens when you remove the sounddevice in device manager and reboot?

[gerryf]

what is the laptop model

What happens when you remove the sounddevice in device manager and reboot?

[CJohnson]

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite (I think M35) with a Pentium M 1500MHz processor running Windows XP Home Edition. I uninstalled SigmaTel C Major Audio from device manager and when I reboot, it manages to reinstall intself as my sound driver. The recording static is still there and I haven't let the sound run long enough to tell, but I assume the distortion on playback is still going on since the symptoms have always gone together. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling it many times and the problem's always managed to survive.

[gerryf]

m35 you think?

flip it over and find out

[gerryf]

that came out a little coarser than I wanted it to...I just want to check around if there are any known defects on the model

I too am wondering about hardware

[gerryf]

also, grab some headphones and see if it recurs with them on.

[CJohnson]

ah yes, of course...

it is a Toshiba Satellite m35-s320, no worries on the coarseness, and I've tried it with headphones, internal and external mics all the their respective symptoms.

[gerryf]

I can find no mention of this as a defect in any of the hardware places I frequent....

just to clairfy, the sound problem occurs both in headphones, internal speakers and external speakers?

I wonder if heat could be an issue...have you ever opened this up and cleaned the vents?

[CJohnson]

well, I guess I haven't tried external speakers, only internals and headphones.
I can give it a shot on externals if you think it would help but I assumed headphones would be similar since they use the same jack.

I have not tried cleaning out the vents and I guess I've had this for about a year. How would I go about doing that? I've never done it before.

[gerryf]

no, headphones should suffice....

To be honest on the dismantling, I have no idea without looking at it. Here's a group of folks who may help---in fact, they may have a better idea,

http://www.notebookf...isplay.php?f=64