Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge, Part 2

I followed your instructions and have rolled the driver all the way back to the Microsoft driver

Now recognized as a High Definition Audio Device.
Date: 7/14/09
Version: 6.1.7600.16385

The sound still won't play on my TV

It worries me a bit that the NVIDIA control panel does not give the option to Set up digital audio.

Besides the system speaker and the headphones there is a Digital Audio S/PDIF option in my sounds. I tried to get the sound to play without making any adjustments and also disabling all the other devices but the Digital Audio. The sound bar next to the Digital Audio moves but no sound on the TV.

Do you have any more ideas? Do you think it is the sound card driver, or is it now the video card? I downloaded and installed the latest from NVIDIA for the Quadro NVS 160M video card.

Thanks for the first tip.

 

If you have the volume indicator move that means sound is being outputted somewhere... something is broken (adapter or cable) or some settings on your TV has changed.

 

I tried this...and it didn't work. I also tried flashing the new A25 BIOS and trying to install windows using AHCI, ATA, and IRRT modes, and all of them gave me the same error. I booted into Windows and downloaded the Pre-OS install Intel drivers from support.dell.com and then when it asked for the driver during the install of the OS, I pointed it to where I had extracted the driver files. It found them, but then said that it did not find hardware compatible with those driver files...I'm not new to this type of stuff, I've installed RAID arrays with pre-OS drivers and done many thing with computers, but I'm at a loss at this point as to what the problem is.

 

For me, in order to play the audio over HDMI through displayport I have to go in and make the digital audio device under playback devices the default audio device. I usually then go and disable my internal speakers. Its a bit of a hassle, but it always works for me. I have the stock W7 audio drivers, I did not install IDT audio. Good luck.

 

I did that with the stock Win 7 drivers but it still didn't work.

Maybe the adapter is broken, I will have to order another one and test. I just want to make sure it isn't something that any of the software screwed up.

Thanks for the ideas, let me know if you have any others that work.

 

It could well be.
I wish I could really help you. It's usually the kind of situation that would make get out and get the parts to test it out, as I am curisous as well.
But I don't have a those fancy LCD TV. I still have my 27inch CRT TV. I barely watch TV these days so I don't really see the point in buying one (especially it would mean getting the uber expensive digital cable with something like 5 real channels to not get letter box view (yea in Quebec there is 0 competition, you basically have a monopoly by default.. it's such a taxed region that no one wants to do come in.) Anyway, :/
I am sure it's something stupid like the mute button is on, or some volume that you don't see is on minimum or something like along that line. Because everyone that seek TV connectivity either:
- Installed the early IDT drivers (but they are for Vista.. so they could run iffy on Win7.. so it may be risky in term of system stability)
- Use Microsoft default settings.

I can't believe that IDT could pull such a move. It's clear that the Display Port support audio, it's clear that the audio pass trough wires are there, they used to support it, and now they decided to say "screw you Dell users". Maybe IDT is not pleased with the contract they have with Dell, and found a way to some user up. I don't know, I just guessing.

I would STRONGLY suggest to get everyone affected by this, to complain to Dell about this, so that they starighten up IDT and the problem fixed. I don't think Dell are aware that this problem exists as everyone find a workarround, instead of hitting on Dell head.

 

Mine does the same when you put it to sleep, the power light comes on and off. But I can leave mine on sleep friday afternoon and come back monday morning and it still have enough power to turn on for a bit before I have to plug in the power. It is just one LED, dunno how much of a drain it actually is on the battery?

EDIT: Wow, maybe I should check to see if there is a page and a half of answers before posting

 

well I guess there is more than little light if it blinks-like-sleeping there must been working some kind of controller.
I agree it doesn't eats battery too much.
But it eats and that's enough to say "I don't want it!"

 

Huh? It powers your RAM. The more RAM you have (number of sticks), and their power consumption and you battery capacity are figures that plays part in consuming your battery.

On my 9-cell battery (old, about a year old when this happened) I already set my laptop to sleep for over 10 hours and just a bit of battery life got lost (I have 2 sticks of RAM).

RAM consumes about 1.3 to 1.6v in general and few watts only.

 

Ha that is ok, I appreciate all replies even when answered.

As mentioned I believe hibernate was really more what I was looking for.

Does anyone know if there is a way to change the fn shortcut with f2 to hibernate instead of sleep?