W860CU sound problem...

which is the best drivers for the sound card?i have very poor audio..thanks and sorry for bad english..

 

i havent updated my audio drivers since i got my notebook last november. i dont think an updated driver will really help as the internal speakers are quite weak and the audio jack similarly outputs realtively weak sound.
a forum member has used a blutooth headset and he reports good sound coming from that. you could also try using the spdif out for better sound, but i havent tried this myself.

 

I posted about this in the main owner thread, and I spoke to Sager about it as well - they told me (and this is confirmed by the other owners) that the W860 has unusually poor audio output, and this seems to be a hardware issue. Period. No real fix, though audio through USB (for example) works great.

 

I looked at the service manual which has circuit diagrams, and it seems like they could fix the audio issues pretty easily. It would require the adjustment of some resisters in the audio output jack circuits, and the gain on the audio output amps.

 

Do a write-up and we can all fix our crappy audio!

 

I will start off by saying I am not responsible for any damage that could occur from making this mod, electronically or physically. Any damage that occur’s could be permanent.

I do not recommend for anybody to try this that is not highly skilled in the use of a soldering iron. (I don’t mean the cheap Iron that you buy at a hardware store, I am talking about a high quality unit that has adjustable heat and can be fitted with an ultra fine tip for surface mount parts work)
I am highly skilled in the art of soldering surface mount parts, I routinely change parts at a part size of 0603, however if I am reading the schematics correctly they use 0402. That is a size that is more than half the size of 0603, in other words very very small (.5mm x 1mm small), so even I would be hesitant to mess with parts that tiny.

Since I do not own a Sager 8960 or 8760, but just exploring the possibility of buying one, I don’t have a lot of details on the how to’s. Looking at the board layout pictures in the service manual the parts I am about to reference could be on either side of the board, if they are on the cpu side you would be able to perform this mod by just removing the back covers, if the parts are on the opposite side than your possibly talking completely removing the motherboard from the chassis.

To improve the signal size of the headphone jack I would change the value of R339 and 342 to zero ohms. (Why they put 75 ohm resistors in a circuit that drives headphones is beyond me).

The audio amplifiers are a bit more tricky, as the schematic shows pull ups and pull downs on the two gain inputs, I read the gain as set to 15.6 dB, and we can improve it by changing the resistors to get 21.6dB. Now that is not a lot of gain but it is the best we can do, and should be noticeable.

For both models the front amp configuration should be:
R229, R237 should have 100K installed, and remove R230, R238

The rear amp for the 8760:
R255, R265 should have 100K installed, and remove R256, R266

So if anybody does try this report back with your results.

Edit: Also this probably voids your warranty!

 

I've just had a look at the schematic myself; I notice there's no ESD protection on the audio ports, so maybe they're relying on the 75R resistors to at least dissipate some of the energy if the codec's limited built-in protection gets triggered?

Also, headphone jacks can short out while the plug is being inserted / removed - maybe they're there to limt the current spike that the codec might otherwise see?

I agree it's a pretty horrible thing to do when there's a low impedance load, but my best guess is they had reliability problems without the series resistors. If I were modding my own PC I'd be inclined to try and squeeze in a separate current buffer, and maybe put in a TVS (transient voltage suppressor) diode on each signal too.

...or just plug in a USB DAC and have done with it!!