M1330 Sound Woes...

Your speaker selection is set to the digital out. Are your speakers Digital? IF not you need set the top listing as the default

Thanks; unfortunately, yes I did.. and I just tried again, and safe mode doesn't seem to help.

Unfortunately, I also get the message: "ExitError:Error=Device Object not present, restart the system and run setup again" every time. The message pops up after I run the driver set up, click "next," and it says it is then installing.. 8 seconds in, I get that error message, and the install stops. This happens for all 3 drivers (newest to oldest) that are on Dell's M1330 driver Web site... so in other words, none of the Sigmatel drivers are installing, and every one results in that same error message in normal boot and in safe mode.

Thank you so much for the reply!

Unfortunately, I can't set the top device as the default... in the picture above, note how it says "not plugged in." Also, when I do right click on it, the option to add it as the default device is grayed out and as such I can't set it as the default device (probably because it thinks it's not attached?)

Also, the weird thing is, if you look at the control panel picture again, every device, including the top one, says "High Definition Audio Device" ... but I don't think my M1330 speakers and headphones are high definition, are they? And, anyway, like I said, they aren't working at all.

Have you tried installing the Sigmatel drive while in Safe Mode

Check the bios settings? Just thowing thoughts out.

Have you recently installed any dvd software?

Hi, thanks for throwing out the thoughts, I appreciate it. I haven't installed any software lately really. I had flashed the new A15 BIOS, and your post made me think that could possibly have correlated with the problem... just for the heck of it, I flashed down to A14, and that didn't fix anything and I continue to get the error when trying to install the Sigmatel driver.

Any other possibilities out there? Would love to have sound working on my laptop.

Thanks again.

Thanks for the idea.. unfortunately that didn't work either, and I have tried tons and tons of permutations of installing, uninstalling, updating drivers, etc., etc. Nothing has worked, and I continue to get that same error message.

Chatted with Dell, they want to either replace the motherboard or have me reinstall Vista. Dell has already replaced my M1330 motherboard twice due to the faulty video chip issue, and I'd rather not deal with that again!

Any other ideas for how I might be able to fix this without a huge repair/formatting computer?

read my post above, that will solve your issue

Did you get the sound to work???? I am facing the same problem right now. The associates from Dell want to replace my motherboard too. I'm in a business trip and have to travel frequently. If you got back your sound even by formatting do let us know. I did try using the factory image but no sound :emotion-6:. Thanks

Thanks mate but it did not work. The latest driver from dell still gives the same error message. Older driver installs and asks to reboot saying "successfully installed reboot computer" After rebooting there is again a Red X on the speaker icon. I tried one other driver from sigmatel itself. It installed pretty good but again no sound. When I go to Control panel> Sound the speakers and headphones still shows not plugged in. When I click the sigmatel button ( installed using old driver.....this too doesn't work but installs don't know how)  it shows a advanced tab.

I found this " http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19248425/19395727.aspx" and tried that too but still the problem persists. Any help would be really appreciated thanks again.

Factory Image Restore is an excellent diagnostic tool. The fact that you used it and still get no audio means there is a hardware problem that cannot be resolved through drivers etc. Good idea to let Dell replace the motherboard.

Hi there, unfortunately I have not gotten my sound to work... .so ridiculous, right?

I've been sitting around without sound for like over a month or something.

Dell has already replaced 2 motherboards in my M1330, and I'm really tired of it. Debating whether to get it fixed again or just buy a different computer sometime soon. Getting to be that time anyway.

So yeah, my guess is we need a pretty serious fix -- motherboard and/or reinstall Windows. Doesn't appear that anything else is doing the trick. Good luck with it, and please share updates here. I'll do the same!

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.