D620 Sound Driver Issues

Question

I work for a company who has ordered about 15-20 Latitude D620's...   After installing everything, and drivers... including the drivers for the SigmaTel Audio Drivers... newest ones off of the DELL site... I give the laptop to the user... they log in... and for some reason the sound card doesn't work.   With everyone of these, I've had to go back to the user, log in, reinstall the drivers. And from then on, they have worked fairly well.   Anyone else seen this?

Jim Coates · Answer

I don't have a Latitude so for what this is worth:

You mentioned 'logging on' twice; I don't know if you think that is relevant to the audio problem or coincidental. I've never seen mention on this board of the audio driver functioning being related to logging on but with these Windows operating systems I wouldn't be surprised.

You didn't say why you had to install drivers, perhaps you did an OS installation. After an XP installation if the Intel chipset driver is not installed before the Sigmatel audio driver, the Sigmatel won't install properly. In a Vista installation there seem to be additional wrinkles that haven't been ironed out yet.

Some of the laptops, a small number I believe, have a problem where the audio works for a while then stops until the driver is re-installed then works again for a while etc. I've never seen a good explanation for this behavior but that doesn't seem to be what you have described.

Jim

benmw · Answer

YES, I have this problem with my D600, I have to reinstall my SigmaTel driver every single time that I restart.  Is there any way around this??

Jim Coates · Answer

I don't know of a specific fix for it, just the usual,

Update BIOS, Dell Notebook System Software, Intel Mobile Chipset, then re-install driver.

You could try to physically remove the modem before installing the driver.

Check the audio Service. Go to Services (Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Services) and check that Windows Audio is enabled, set to automatic, and running.

Go into the Device Manager (Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/System Tools/Device Manager/System Devices) and check that 'Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator' is installed and running. It will be listed alphabetically.

Jim

TechnoButt · Answer

Did any of this resolve the issue for you?  I'm having the same issue.   Can you check services to see if these are running for you: 1- Workstation Service 2- Windows Time Service 3- ICS/Firewall Service   About the same time we started having the sound problems at my company, we also had trouble doing 'runas /noprofile /user:domain\account ' and I traced those issues back to the workstation service not running even though it is set to 'automatic'.  I manually started that service and set the fail to restart for all three cases.  I did the same for the other two.   I'm still having trouble getting ICS/Firewall to run.   Event viewer shows WMI failing as well.   Yes, I'm able to delete the Sigmatel in device manager and let it reload the latest drivers from Dell (which is what it was already using) and the device functions.. for a while.   It appears it might be related to recovering from Standby mode, not sure of this relationship.   The drivers are installed.  Device manager and sounds (in control panel) report the device is .   I also found a possible relationship to an order of installing updates from Microsoft for Windows XP SP2.  There is apparently a bug with the updates and install order that causes workstation service to stop running.    Can you confirm that you recently installed many updates on your D620? (at about the time the sound stopped working)   I'm desperately trying to find a resolution for this, so any advice from anyone on the topic would be appreciated.  Thanks!

benmw · Answer

None of these tips worked for me.  Also I am missing the volume icon  from my taskbar; when I click the 'display icon' button in cntrl panel it immediately tells me that the 'Volume Control' is not installed and that I must install it through Add/Remove Programs.  I don't have my windows CD and can therefore not do this, maybe that's why I'm having all of these issues...   My sound will still work, I just have to reinstall the SigmaTel audio driver every single time I reboot...

Jim Coates · Answer

TechnoButt,

When I said I didn't know of a specific fix, I meant that I don't know of any fix; out of all the times the problem of having to repeatedly re-install the audio driver has been posted, no one has ever resolved this as far as I can remember. I think those with warranties just sent them back to Dell and perhaps had the mb replaced ... not sure about that.

benmw,

I wonder if the "Volume Control" is the system mixer? 'Search' for sndvol32. It should be in C:\I386 and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. Go to Start/Search and type in sndvol32.exe and click ok. If you don't see it listed in the System32 folder you will can put it there.

You can copy the SNDVOL32.EXE file from another computer from its System32 folder and paste it into your System32 folder.

"None of these tips worked for me." You tried removing the modem?

Jim

TechnoButt · Answer

No, I haven't tried removing the modem.  Did I miss that suggestion?  Do you mean physically removing or disabling in device manager?   I, also, sometimes do not have a volume control in the taskbar, even though the volume control is configured to 'show in taskbar'.   I'm trying to recreate the problems on another D620 at my desk (as most of my affected users are off-site, and me troubleshooting what is only a mildly annoying problem for them prevents them from doing their jobs).  If I get one in hand with the problems, I'll probably find some sort of solution, but I'm having trouble recreating it (which makes me think it might actually be hardware, since we used the same ghost image for all of these laptops - though they do continue to get updates from WSUS and they have various application packages installed on them once they are assigned to specific clients).

benmw · Answer

Yeah I connect through a wireless router, do you mean that I should just unplug the modem I run through (or maybe just disable the connection on my laptop) and reinstall the driver?  I'm not to sure what that will do but I could try it.   I haven't searched for the sndvol32 file yet, I'll try that.

TechnoButt · Answer

Update:   I've been able to recreate the problem my clients are experiencing on a D620 on my test bench.  It does seem to be connected to standby, as my sound is not working post standby.   I'm not sure what is causing the problem, but I have made some headway.  The problem on my test machine is identical to what we've been discussing, but rather than uninstall/reinstall the drivers, I checked the services to see if the other services I've mentioned are affected.  I'm not sure how many are not running, but these are definitely not started (despite being automatic):   Workstation - this appears to be the source of our 'runas' issues, in that we can't inherit domain privelidges on the machine to run install software/etc.   ICS/Firewall - this service needs to run, but I cannot start it, even manually.   Windows Time - for some reason, this service not running is causing time to lose sync, by as much as 15 minutes in an 8 hour work day.  I would think the PC would keep time pretty well on it's own, but apparently it is not doing so.   Windows Audio - this service is why the sound device doesn't show up in mixer/volume control and media player.  I believe reinstalling the drivers attempts to restart this service.  However, I've found that if I restart the service manually, the sound returns without reboot.  I'm going to test using the options on the 'recovery' tab to restart this service when it fails 'first, second, and subsequent'.   The underlying issue may very well be driver related, and I'll let you guys know what I find next.

benmw · Answer

Cool.  I searched for sndvol32.exe and low and behold it was indeed missing from my laptop.  I copied the file from another machine onto mine and now everything is peachy keen.  The volume icon is back on the taskbar and my sound works (I haven't tried rebooting yet though..).   THanks

Jim Coates · Answer

Just want to let you guys know I'm still following this thread. I had some problems last week ... my power lines came down in my yard but I've gotten the mess all straightened out now. Took a few days.

TechnoButt seems to be well on the way to a diagnosis. Very encouraging.

Jim

TechnoButt · Answer

Update, see microsoft KB927891.   Apparently, there is a problem that causes svchost to crash, which makes all of these 'automatic' services stop running (windows audio, workstation, etc).  After installing the microsoft patch (which for some reason was not available to our WSUS server) and rebooting, the services start again without having to be manually started (ie, they don't fail to start).   Two users testing this solution for two days and counting.  So far, the sound/time/runas/etc issues are resolved.   Another guy here was troubleshooting one of the boxes when he got a watson message, and followed the link and found the article.  Ironically, M$ had the answer for anyone who happened to be sitting in front of the computer precisely when the service crashed.   Another concern from this fallout is that our D620's that lost windows time service could not even begin to keep time on their own.  They would lose time rapidly, as much as an hour or so per day.  I would think the internal hardware clock could do a better job of keeping time than that?  That's my next path of concern.

rjones55 · Answer

We have over 400 of the D620's and started having sound issues. After many weeks of troubleshooting and email messages with Dell our technical staff found a Microsoft update was causing the problem. Once we installed the update for the update our sound problems. We make sure the D620 is running the latest BIOS (A08) then we install update KB927891, and reinstall the SigmaTel drivers and the sound problems have gone away.

kbradsh · Answer

I have a new D620 from work : I'm having Sound problems but not sure they're the same as above -- Jim - Do you have any ideas   Have played a CD in the DVD drive & the Windows CD player activates but there's no sound Have played a DVD using powerdvd - The picture is perfect but the sound is choppy   These are the 2 problems -   However : If I put a CD containing MP3 files the V6 Media player plays them fine I also put a CD in that had a mpg file and that played in Windows Media player fine   Could it still be a driver issue At first I thought  it may be the DVD drive but if the CD with MP3's plays I'm not sure it is   Any ideas ??

Jim Coates · Answer

'I'm having Sound problems but not sure they're the same as above ' The symptoms you describe seem to me to be quite different from those in the rest of this thread. I suggest you start a new thread. Meanwhile reinstall your audio driver and mention the results of that and the name of your operating system in the new thread. Jim

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D620 Sound Driver Issues

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