cf-29hwlgzbm no sound

Hello, I have two of these without sound. I got them when our county sheriff's dept. upgraded laptops. I installed XP pro sp3, found drivers but no sound. Device manager has no yellow ? marks and problem devices under accessories shows nothing. The computers had XP pro sp2 on them and I am wondering if maybe I shouldn't have went to sp3 and because both have the same problem it would be odd if it is a mechanical thing. I'm retired and on a fixed income and need to fix these myself. I know there are answers here and would be thankful for any help. Tks ineedtono

 

Most issues do seem to be driver-related with TB's but is it possible the Sheriff's Dept. disabled sound for some reason by unplugging the speaker?
It's worth the couple of minutes it takes to check - just remove the 4 screws holding the ram cover on the bottom and you can see the little 2-pin plug.
Oh yes... plug headphones in the rear socket to see if there's sound present.
Oh yes 2... haven't pressed fn/f4 and muted sound have you?

 

I fought a CF-29L and a CF-29N for quite a time.(months) THEN I used a factory restore disk and sound came up immediately.
By all means pop the door and check the speakers.
Then try factory restore.

Jeff

 

before u try the hint from Sadlmkr and u have time, just go to the panasonic website and install the original audio driver for ur TB. I want to know about this phenomena.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'll check if the sound has been unplugged, but a 3rd machine, different model number ( cf-29LAQGZBN ) that I bought the same time from the sheriff's dept. the sound works fine.
Unfortunately I do not have a factory restore disk for the 29s.....wish I did.....I've been looking all over the Web with no luck, but I know somewhere out there someone has a fix for me. tks ineedtono

 

When you say "found drivers" did you find them or did Windows find them?
Go here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/356620-toughbook-drivers-manuals-sources.html
Find the correct sound driver for your model and install it manually. If you're not sure how to manually replace a driver post back and someone will help you out. Welcome to the nut house.
CAP

 

To answer Capt. dogfish, I purchased a CD at EBay, it supplied drivers that windows did not, and Panasonic support only states that cf-29nwlgzbm is discontinued. The cf-29htlgzbm is close es one to my toughbook cf-20hwlgzbm. I do not know what the W means cf-29 h W lgzbm m or the T in cf-29h T lgzbm. I'm not computer geek and know just enough to be dangerous but I've gotten further along than the computer guy everyone around here recommends and keep my laptops and PCs running smooth. Evidently these toughbooks are in a league of their own. Tks to all, Phillip

 

T = Touchscreen
W = Touchscreen + backlit rubber keyboard

Both should use the same set of drivers.

 

You can identify many configurations here:

CF-29 - ToughWiki

 

Here is some info.


Toughbook 29
Fully Rugged Notebook Computer - Full Mag. Alloy Case, Shock-mounted HDD, Moisture and Dust Resistant, Wireless Ready


H - Pentium M 738 - 1.4GHz (Centrino) 802.11a/b/g

W - 13.3" XGA Touch Screen - Rubber backlit keybd

L - 60 GB HDD - 256 MB RAM

G - Floppy Disk Drive - Ethernet

Z - No integrated options

B - Windows XP Pro SP2

M - North America

 

OK then. Go to the link I posted. We do not recommend the rip off disks from eBay or any of the online driver scanners. A quick peek on panasonic.ca delivers sound_29_3_d030899.exe (376.35 KB - English), the correct sound driver for CF-29H, MK3 units. The presence or lack thereof of a touchscreen has no bearing on the sound card. Panasonic.ca>English>support button on upper right of screen>downloads in drop down menu>Windows XP in operating system window>cf29 without the hyphen in model>sound in keyword. This is called "walking you through it" and make a note, you won't often see me doing it. That's why I wrote the sticky back in the dark ages. There is a detailed description on how to force Windows to accept the proper driver in that sticky, have at it. Happy New Year!
CAP

 

Have you tried to check if you get sound out of the Headphones jack?

 

I had this same problem not so very long ago. All the above advice is VERY good. This advice was followed along with putting the downloaded driver onto a usb drive. I then went into device manager and loaded the driver "manually" with the driver on the usb drive. It took a few trys but finally worked. One quick and easy way to test your hardware and see if it is working (at least worked for me), is to load another Linux program such as Joli 1.2/ubuntu onto your hard drive. For some reason it seems to find all your hardware, and you will be able to check for sound then by streaming pandora, etc. Good luck

 

Great idea with the Linux! I will have to try that sometime.