Vista T61, distortion/clipping with audio recording

I use my computer for VOIP calls and recording lectures and have always had great success with the "T" series laptops. However, with the new Vista T61 when I go into the recording settings and turn on "boost" which is required for it to pick up well enough, all I'm getting is distortion and clipping. It's quite awful.

I've tried two different microphones as well as the built-in microphone and still get terrible distortion. I tried setting the microphone gain on 90, 80, 70 and 60 percent, per tech support's suggestion, and am still getting the same problem. A colleague has the same computer and is reproducing the same results.

I believe that there is a glitch in the audio driver for the sound card which I did try to update, but it has the newest one. So next I tried to install XP Professional which went terribly. The control panel is full of yellow bangs. That was definitely a dead end. Part of the problem was the Robson turbo Ram, but it does not like XP.

I'm very interested to see if anyone else experiences the same issue on theirs and if any people do have XP installed on their laptops if they are able to get it to record audio with the microphone "boost" enabled and if they get the distortion as well.

In searching the Internet I found where someone had loaded Linux on his T61 and had the same audio recording problems and had posted a fix for them in Linux. The information was very specific on exactly what the issue is but of no help to Windows Vista users.

It looks like this computer is going back and I'm paying the restocking fee tax because I can't wait for Microsoft and Lenovo to come out with audio drivers that work and not be able to use it in the meantime.

The bottom line is that recording audio is very important to you and you want to be able to use the full range of settings, I believe you'll be very disappointed with the results with your T61 and Vista. If anyone can come up with a solution for this before I send it back, I'd be very happy to know what it is.



Wil

 

Bump...

Has anyone tried recording audio with their T61 with Vista or XP and the microphone boost setting on and been able to get good results? Being able to record lectures is of utmost importance to me, and I'm hoping someone will share this information before placing my order for one of these.

Thanks,

Wil Wilcox

 

it sucks for now, but through lots of trial and error, I have decent audio in Skype video calls. Messenger is a lost cause, and all you get it static and pinging noises.