dell latitude d630 sound/no sound at all

It could be that the audio chip has failed. I suggest that you run the audio tests in the Dell 32-bit Diagnostics. Dell 32-bit Diagnostics will no longer be on your hard drive, so download it and install on a flash drive or on a cd/dvd. (It would require a new 32-bit partition to run off of your hard drive.) If the instructions below don't work for you, you might be able to google up better instructions.

Download to your desktop the CW1337A0.exe version of Dell 32-bit Diagnostics -- that is the one labelled File Format:Hard Drive. Double click the downloaded folder to unzip. Let the extractor unzip the files to the folder location it suggests. After extraction, the dialog should start, but if if does not then go to the folder and click the file named DDDP. Next you will see a dialog with several options. Select either Install to a USB Flash Drive, or Create a Bootable CD.

After you create the medium,
1. Restart the laptop while pressing F12 during the startup process, to open the Boot Menu.
2. On the Boot menu, select either USB Storage, or CD/DVD. The diagnostic should open.
3. If you see a choice of 3 Customer options, select option 2 -- Graphics Based Diagnostic.
4. On the diagnostics Main Menu screen, select 'Custom', then the audio tests. (At this point - after you have opened Dell Diagnostic custom - if you can't find the option to select the audio tests that is a symptom of a failed audio chip.)

5. The tests will run. There are roughly 6 of them for audio. If you only have one or two, that is a symptom of a failed audio chip. Some of the tests will play a piece of instrumental music -- not just beeps & tones -- and ask you whether you heard it.

6. If you don't hear the music during the test, it means there is a hardware failure somewhere in the system.

7.If you do hear the audio during the test but not when you boot back into Windows, that almost always** means the hardware is okay but there is a problem with the audio driver or with Windows. [** the exception is sense pin failure, which the tests will not detect.]

8. Error codes: If you answer 'no' to any question that the test asks you, the test generates an error code that can tell a technician that you answered 'no' to that question. The test does not usually pinpoint the exact component that has gone bad. Before answering 'no' to a question, make note of the circumstances at that point so you will know in general what the error code means.

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The lack of audio could be a driver issue, however Win7 has a native audio driver that normally runs the audio fine (except for the mic jack) when there are no Sigmatel audio files present. If you want to try a Sigmatel driver, your best bet is probably this Sigmatel driver for Vista 32-64 bit, because there is not a Win7 version for the D630. Install using compatibility mode.

1. Download and save the audio driver to your desktop or any convenient location on the hard drive.
2. Double click on the new folder to extract (unzip) the driver files.
3. The extractor wizard will create a new folder for the driver files. It will be at "c:\dell\drivers\xxxxxx". Write down the exact location that the wizard creates.
4. If the driver begins to install automatically, halt (cancel) the installation.
5. Browse to the driver files on the hard drive (the location you wrote down).
6. Find the "setup.exe" file.
7. Right click on setup.exe to open the context menu.
8. Select the Properties.
9. Select the Compatibility tab.
10. Check the box "run this program in compatibility mode for"... Win7.

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If the audio chip has died, a workaround solution is to get a usb audio device. A usb audio jack like this is very inexpensive.