Sound levels too low on my new T61

Hi, everyone --

I love my new T61 (14.1, Windows XP -- I can elaborate if necessary), but I find that the sound levels are really low, even when I have everything up as high as it goes. It's almost as if it thinks I have external speakers plugged in, but I don't. Not that I know anything about this sort of thing...but that's my impression.

Any advice? Thanks!

 

I also got a new t61p and experienced the same issue.

 

I am using Vista x64 Business Edition, but I found the sound on the T61 to be very dependent on the program that it is coming from. For example when I watch DVDs on the machine, Windows media player is very low in volume and the other DVD player made by Intermedia, included with the Thinkpad, sounds much louder. I tested it with the same DVD. So I would suggest trying different programs. For example, if you are listening to you music through Win Media player, try Winamp instead.

 

Well, that's not always an option, unfortunately -- if I'm trying to watch something on a website, for example, I don't have control over how the sound comes through (do I?). I've also noticed that the alerts and beeps I have (for example, the Gmail notifier) are very, VERY quiet, and while that doesn't really bother me that much, it does seem to be part of the same problem.

 

You're correct redpencilgirl, you will not have the control of "boosting" the volume for websites. Some software, like Media Player Classic for example, has 3 audio options: Normalize, Regain Volume, and a Boost bar to make the sound louder. Your built-in speakers are not very strong, but they're capable to be a little louder, too bad they don't have those boost options in the driver or Windows settings. I'm not sure if you can do it through some registry tweaks, I haven't look into it yet. Your best bet would be adding some external speakers with independent volume control knobs.

 

Well, that's a little frustrating, I have to say -- I have no room for external speakers on my desk (bad enough that the widescreen laptop takes up more desk real estate than my old R31 did), and what am I supposed to do when I travel? (It is a laptop, after all; I don't always plan on having it plugged in here at home.) Seems like a major design flaw in an otherwise solid computer.

 

I think it's a design flaw also, but the T series was never meant to be an entertainment laptop, so I don't know. But I think even not for entertainment, a better speaker would also be useful in business video conference calls for example.

 

If you use a pair of earbuds or a small set of headphones, they travel well and the sound will probably be much louder than it is from the speakers while set at the same volume level. Panasonic also used to make a great pair of thin foldaway travel speakers at a good price (think I got mine for $20), but don't know if they still do.

 

Or if you got bluetooth a pair of bluetooth headphones. My R60 always is louder running Linux than Windows, but I don't know why.

 

So there's really no way to just boost the sound?

 

did you try going through control panel to raise the volume to the system max?

also what program are you using? VLC will let you play around with some equalizer settings. Setting it to "headphones" helps raise it a bit

 

Yes, I went through the control panel -- everything is up to the Max. What is VLC? I use Windows Media Player most of the time, but I stream radio through it, and those levels vary. Then again, sometimes I'll go to watch something on YouTube or someplace; the other day I had to turn the air conditioner off to hear a Colbert Report clip my sister forwarded to me.

If there is some kind of control I just haven't found yet, I'd love to hear about it...

 

The volume of the videos on YouTube vary, so that's normal.

VLC is a media player that has settings where you can boost the sound a bit. I think Media Player Classic has the option as well.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm

 

Sorry if I repeat myself a lot or if I seem to get frustrated -- I do appreciate all the replies.

I know that sound levels vary on YouTube and on other sites, but when I had my R31, I never had problems hearing anything. With my brand-new T61 I have that problem all the time.

Is that VLC player something that will help sound from outside sources...or anything as mundane as the beeps I have set as alerts which I can't hear if I step away from the computer?

 

Sound output is about 90% hardware and 10% software. Even if VLC or any other media player provides any volume boost, it will most likely not be what you would like. Of course it won't hurt to try. The beep noises you hear are hardware beeps, I don't think you can control the volume of that, but media players will only increase the volume of the media they are playing rather than websites and such.

If that doesn't make it any better, my recommendation would be to either buy external speakers (the portable ones come in real small sizes) or a quality set of headphones.

 

windows media player has a graphic equalizer, you can use that to help a bit

 

You mean the thing with Wave, SW Synth, etc.? Because all those are up as high as they go.

This is a brand-new computer. Would calling Lenovo do me any good?

 

If you were using Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) that would be very easy to fix as described here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ubuntu_8.10_(Intrepid_Ibex)_on_a_ThinkPad_T61

The surprisingly high quality and free software, incredible abilities too customize and the dazzling speed gain over Vista won me over eventually. After timidly trying I'm using Ubuntu 64 bit 8.10 now as my primary operating system and Vista (which was preinstalled as 32 bit...) as my "service partition" for easy updating of BIOS, etc. It is straight forward and safe to resize partitions with Ubuntu's partition editor and install as dual boot. You should give it a shot!

Here are the instructions to increase the loudness:

[...] Sound works "out of the box", but is too quiet for many people. To fix this you need to do the following:

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

and add

options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad

to the very end of the file (/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base).

 

Oh another reason: I was waisting a lot of computation and battery power on virus scans and defragmenting. No more. Worm outbreaks like the upcoming Conficker "Pearl Harbor" affect me now only peripherally (e.g. no more USB at work): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/technology/internet/23worm.html?em