Studio 15 (1557) Subwoofer Not Working

Me again; sorry.

I tried a little experiment this morning. I recorded a series of tones (20-150 Hz) and played them through this laptop, my old laptop (a Toshiba with what I consider to be reasonable speakers) and a mini Hi-Fi via the headphone/line out socket on this laptop. As one might expect, even the 20Hz tone was audible on the hi-fi speakers. It wasn't until about 50Hz that the volume was reasonable.

On my old Toshiba, all tones below 150Hz were barely audible. I had to put my ear to the speakers to hear anything.

On the Dell, all the tones up to 100Hz are audible. 125Hz & 150Hz are moderately loud.

I'm surprised at the lack of bass on my old laptop, as my perception is that it has the better bass response. It's possible that the Dell's subwoofer is working, but is a token effort. The sound in the higher frequencies from the front speakers may be overwhelming the bass.

I had another post deleted; my previous one, just after Hugo had said that his subwoofer was working, but he didn't know what he did to make it happen. The only reason I can see for this deletion (besides me criticising Dell!) is my use of a word beginning with C and ending in P and meaning nonsense. I'll repost it in it's entirety (with the necessary amendment) here:

That's cool Hugo, but what is your system's spec? Are you running Win7 32- or 64-bit? I gonna ask you what you did to your settings, coz it is important to know! I've tried all combinations of configuring the IDT control panel and the Win7 control panel to no avail; it could be possible that there is a driver AND a hardware issue here.
Anyway, as for my situation: I got my call from Dell tech support, as promised, at 18:45 on Wednesday night; I spoke to a very nice man  who accessed my machine remotely, twiddled about with the IDT and Windows audio control panels for a bit, then asked me to play some tunes on my media player and tell him if there was any bass response.

There was not.

He then said that there was nothing for it but to have the subwoofer unit replaced. I said steady on, my good man; are you sure it isn't a driver issue? He said nah, it would have to be replaced. Now, being on a basic collect & return warranty, I was none too pleased about this, as I'd only received the laptop a week before. He acknowledged this and said he would "upgrade" my warranty to home service, and would send an engineer round to my place next week to sort it out, in situ! Well, I thought, if my communications with Dell have confirmed anything, it's the fact that any dealings with a huge organisation can range, all in the space of a single query, from the sublime to the ridiculous (or the other way around, in this case); first I had to cut through the nonsense with the first couple of people I spoke to in tech support, who insisted my machine didn't have a subwoofer, and now this, which is shaping up to be an exemplary piece of customer service (but I guess I shouldn't count my chickens yet; will have to see what happens next week...). OK, so I have to take a day off work to let the guy into my house, but I didn't even know Dell had a at-home service plan!

For those of you with the same subwoofer problem, I'll let you know the tech guy's findings once he's visited; I'm hoping the info might come in handy! In the meantime, it won't hurt for any of you affected to report the problem to Dell yourselves' the more of you that do, the more likely they are to work out whether it's a driver or hardware issue.

Watch this space...

Way to go NifKin!   Deadpencil, is yours working?

Nope, mine is still not working. I'm just holding back and seeing if the service engineer is able to fix NifKins laptop subwoofer - I'm guessing that replacing the hardware probably won't fix it but we'll see. If replacing it does work for NifKin (and some other I know who have sent theirs back for repair), then I'll send mine back and get it fixed but if not I'll have to wait for Dell to address the software issues.

As other have said, it's not that much of a major issue, the sound is ok without the sub but I just wish Dell would at least acknowledge that there is;
a) a subwoofer
b) a widespread problem which they are going to fix.

I think you've misuderstood my post. I wasn't saying that I was happy with the situation but that I would like Dell to admit there is a problem. I too am not the slighest bit pleased that I have a defective system.

Also, I have reported the fault to Dell, I've been on the phone to them several times over the past 2 weeks. The reason I say I'm waiting for the other folks I know to have their hardware swapped out is because they have either got on site service or don't mind being without the system for 7 days or so. I have Dell on standby to take my system in for repair but I couldn't wrangle an on-site service engineer to come out and since I do not want to be without the system for the next week without knowing that it will be worth it, I'm holding off for a few days until I hear back from the likes of you and my other contacts with their findings.

By saying that it isn't a major issue I meant that I can still use the system as intended in the time being until it's resolved.

Trust me, I'm very annoyed by this and I'm not ignoring the situation.

Deadpencil, it was me that said it wasn't a major issue, but it is most definitely still an issue! I don't know about you, but I'm simply not content to accept an expensive product from a supplier that has even one element at fault! These machines were purchased brand new, and Dell shouldn't be let of the hook just because "the sound is kinda OK"!! Also, it would help if people, like you, who also have the fault could report it to Dell too; the more people report it, the more likely Dell are to look into it properly, instead of just letting me be a guinea pig for Dell's lacklustre technical support response.

With that attitude I'm not going to bother posting whether or not the subwoofer replacement fixes the problem, so you'll just have to report your machine yourself!

What's the point of a forum to discuss issues like these if we don't take action as a group??!! :emotion-40:

You have no bass at all? Or maybe you just don't get bass response when testing with IDT control panel or Windows sound properties?

The fact that it doesn't respond to that test might not imply subwoofer is not working... Otherwise you'd have ZERO bass. I don't get any response in both tests but I feel the bass when configured to 5.1. So I guess it's working. It's true that it's important that we paid for something expensive and it must be working 100% but as I said maybe it's not a failure it's just the way it works and the Dell staff you've contacted is not skilled enough. I bet for the second option.

Guys I received my studio 15 yesterday so I thought I'd send in a quick post.

When I got the laptop I found the found the sound dissapointing (scratchy, way too much treble, no bass) but had completely forgotten about the built-in sub.  The speakers just sounded like sub-average laptop speakers.

When I found this thread I thought my sub must be dead too or missing completely.  I turned my laptop over and to my surprise can see the sub in the vent!  I put my ear to it and low and behold I can hear what is a faint muffled sound.  There is certainly no shaking of the table however!

So I played about with the IDT control panel.  Some notes:

* I'm in stereo mode (I tried surround modes and even telling windows I was in 5.1 mode but with only 2.1 speakers connected, it didn't do much).
* turn off the SRS premium sound or at least change the settings.  At default there is way too much treble and it it sounds awful.
* for the most bass and nicest sound try enabling SRS Premium again but on custom, trubass 100%, definition 0%, centre 50%, space 25% (try this anywhere between 0-50%), and focus 50%.
* bass management I turned off, it appears to do nothing
* the EQ is flat, you can try and push up the 3 leftmost controls (although only the 125Hz did much but thats to be expected on such small laptop speakers).

Basically unless people on the forum are definitely experiencing a problem with their sub, it might just be its not very good!  But you can never expect too much from a 1" sub!  Just to reiterate:

* if you put the sub to your ear you should definitely hear it (not bass but basically a quiet muffled low-ish freq version of the music)
* the front of the laptop case does vibrate very slightly

now all i need to do is decide if this 1920x1080 res on a 15" screen is going to blind be before i'm 26.

I agree. The subwoofer is not working like an external subwoofer would, but it is working, the difference in bass from no IDT to IDT installed is big.

Best thing is to configure windows to stereo speakers, activate sound improvements, and config IDT for SRS like you said more or less, with small speaker size.

As for the 1920x1080 you won't get blind if you use 135-145% font size for Windows, and zoom addons for your browser. Anyway java applications won't get any bigger, as well as other dialogs. But I guess the market will tend to Full HD so it might become the right choice soon.

Had a visit from Getronics today, the company that deal with Dell on-site support in the UK; the guy dismantled my machine, replaced the subwoofer, and now it works fine! No need to twiddle with either the Win 7 or IDT control panels to get it to work. The reason why Dell Tech Support helpline seemed to have a struggle dealing with the issue (see my earlier posts:emotion-7:) is that Dell's own internal database of componentry and parts makes no mention of there being a subwoofer onboard the 1557, even though it is clearly visible on the technician's visual guide to removing/replacing the motherboard. Nigel, the friendly and competent guy from Getronics who serviced my machine, said he would feed this anomally back to Dell, as, he said, they're usually very thorough with their tech spec info, and it's the first time he'd seen an omission like this.

Well, we live and learn, eh? Let's hope Dell do too :emotion-5:

Hi Nifkin,

Good to know that after replacement it's fixed, can you tell me now in 5.1 Surround sound do you get the waves or something when it's testing sub ?

Hi everyone

I purchased the Dell 1557 last weekend and too puzzled by the subwoofer not performing and all treble stuff, I have done many steps repeatly to isolate the problem.

It seems that only when the volume is "suddenly" set to almost maximum then does the subwoofer kick in, and only for the instance or timeframe that you play music /movie/etc.

If you mute the sound, or set it down to low volume, and try to play some sound, the subwoofer is inactive again.

I would say its definitely a driver issue, and hope that a "permanent" solution can be provided soon.

The charactistic of the bass/subwoofer on the 1557 is, a "wide" spread of mid-low muffling sound (not in anyway like a real subwoofer).

While all treble is a "sharper", thin sound.

I tried uninstalling the drivers, back to default Windows 7 64-bit audio drivers, downloading and install the drivers at the Dell Support drivers site, and meddling with the IDT audio control panel for days and hours, and still all treble. Hope the above works for you.

Cheers

I too have nil bass frequency on my 1557 - Has anyone spoken to dell about this recently ? I was just wondering if they are giving any useful advice now. If it is a driver issue I'm happy to sit quietly until it is resolved but if it is going to be a hardware fix I will chase them up over it.

THanks.

:emotion-8: Perhaps you should read the last post I made (above). The issue with no sound from the subwoofer has nothing to do with the drivers (as long as you have the up-to-date ones from the Dell website). If you've got an issue with it, it'll be down to the hardware. If that's not enough advice, can't help you, sorry.

EDIT: duplicate post