Possible Unique Sound Problem with Dell Studio XPS 16 (1640)

Long story short:

My sound does not play through my on-board speakers, but does play through external speakers or headphones. It is not a hardware issue, as I can replicate a way to make sound play through the on-board speakers temporarily, but I cannot figure out a permanent solution without doing a fresh install, and I'd rather not resort to that.

Long story:

About a month ago, my original hard drive failed. I was able to request a replacement hard drive under my warranty, which came with a self-installing image of Vista (and other Dell software). I was using Windows 7 beta on my old hard drive and decided to go with the release candidate for my new one. I bring this up because it seems I made a mistake in upgrading from Vista to Windows 7, instead of just using a clean install. On my old hard drive, I did a clean install of the beta and had to do some tinkering to make it all work, so I was hoping I wouldn't have any issues with drivers by just upgrading then removing the excess bloatware.

Well, everything seemed to go according to plan. I installed a bunch of programs, copied a lot of stuff from an old PC, and didn't suspect anything until, one day, I didn't have my external speaker jack plugged in. I wasn't hearing any sound, but knew that my on-board speakers should at least be working. I first thought I may have disconnected something when installing the hard drive somehow, but the hardware checked out just fine. I uninstalled, reinstalled, upgraded and did a number on my drivers, but nothing seemed to work.

I know that it is not a hardware issue, because I can replicate a way to make sound play through the on-board speakers temporarily. If I open up the sound options from the control panel and "test" both of the enabled devices while listening to music, my on-board speakers will temporarily play whatever music I'm listening to, and my external speakers will play the test sounds. It seems to be a weird issue where all sound is being directed externally, unless a test in progress, then the sounds that are already playing will be projected by the on-board speakers. To make it simple: the on-board speakers work if I run a test while listening to music, but only for the duration of the test (3 seconds), then the problem returns.

As of now, everything is exactly how I want it to be on my machine, and I don't want to have to do a fresh install just to fix this minor-yet-annoying issue.

Relevant information:

OS: Windows 7 Release Candidate 1

Drivers on Device Manager:
ATI High Definition Audio Device
IDT High Definition Audio CODEC
(tried all of the latest IDT drivers, also tried Windows automatic drivers)

Sound Devices from Control Panel:
"Speakers / Headphones" enabled as Default Device
"Independent Headphones" enabled as Default Communication Device
(I have tried switching their roles, enabling, disabling and testing them all)

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

Bumping this for the weekend.

Here's to hoping that someone may have already run into a similar problem and found a solution. *crosses fingers*

Thanks in advance.

 

just back up everything and reinstall os and get it back the way you like it is it really that big of a deal

 

Yes, it really is that big of a deal, or I wouldn't have asked.

The process of recovering my old files, transferring files from my old disassembled computer, and then installing and updating all my software was a very tedious process; I don't wish to repeat it unless I have to. I have no means of easily backing up my data (at least 250 gigs), and I don't want to fork over money for an external hard drive at the moment, so that's a last resort for me.

I'm hoping for someone that may understand this computer better than me to lead me in the right direction for a possible solution, without resorting to the typical PEBKAC responses.

 

Do you mean your laptop speakers play no sound at all but when you click the Test in Sound Devices, it will play the ding ding ding sound ?

 

Pretty much, except slightly opposite. If I'm playing music or a game with sound already, and I perform the test, the sound already playing will play through my on-board speakers, while the test sounds will play through whatever external device is attached. So, let's say, If I'm listening to a song and I run the test, the song will play through the on-board speakers and the test noises will play through my external speakers.

I can replicate this every time by opening the Sound panel and going to my playback devices. The devices are listed as "Speakers / Headphones" (default device) and "Independent (R.T.C.) Headphones." My default device shows the sound being recognized while it plays, and the second device shows nothing. If I run a sound test from the secondary device, the above phenomenon occurs. If I run a sound test from the default device, the test sounds play through the same external speakers as the music, and nothing comes from the on-board speakers.

I'll admit, it's very odd. I've tried uninstalling, disabling, reinstalling, updating, and downgrading all sorts of driver combinations, but I never get them to work. I'm sure it's something very simple, but I just don't know how to make it work.

 

I still couldn't get the exact problem of yours. So in conclusion, your on-board speakers on themselves are not working, but when you plug in the external speakers, and you run the test, your on-board speakers work ?

 

If you think your problem could be solved by re-installing your SO. You can re-install windows 7 and when installing it will ask if you want to back up your documents to C:\Windows.old

 

Yes, you are correct. The on-board speakers will play sound only during the testing process. However, as the test only lasts for about 3 seconds, the sound only plays from the on-board speakers for the duration of the test. So for 3 seconds, I can hear audio perfectly out of my on-board speakers, then it goes back to being stubborn. This is an infinitely repeatable process.

I'm considering this as an option if I can't manage to find a solution with this thread.

 

long answer short, RC1 was not perfect. RC1 had the same issues on my asus. You're running a pre-release OS, and if you do a clean install of RTM you'll probably be fine like i was.. Might need different drivers.

 

The only discrepancy being that the beta version did not have this problem, and I assume the release candidate wouldn't either on a fresh install. I realize that the issue was choosing to upgrade versus just installing fresh, but now I'm in too deep and I've been unable to figure out the problem.

I was hoping to find someone that may have experienced similar issues, but I guess this truly is a unique problem.

 

*shrugs* At this point buy the final version of the OS, reinstall from scratch, and be done with it. The release candidate starts turning off the computer every 2 hours on March 1st anyways. That is about 4 months away. Yes its a PITA and takes time to do, but once done, you are done.
Plus you won't be running RC code which is always a plus. we found transfers in the RC 7100 build to be twitchy sometimes. This was resolved in the RTM release and frankly it resolved a number of other bugs in third party apps as well.

 

I get the EXACT same problem as you, originally I thought it was a short out somewhere on the motherboard so I was gonna get dell to replace the laptop but then I did a last search and found this post and I can hear the speakers like you do when I do the test thing so now I know it isn't hardware. Problem is though (just letting you know), is that when I did a full reformat I still got the same problem ie: I was running Win 7 with the problem then did a full reformat and I still have the problem and have no idea what the hell to do!

 

I had the same problem (external speakers/headphones working only) and it fixed itself... dunno. I'm glad I have the complete care.

 

Oh ok, I have complete care too, its just I can't be bothered with getting Dell out here if it can fix itself.

 

I joined this forum just so that I could post a reply to this thread, and hopefully it will help other people.
I had the EXACT same problem with my XPS studio 16, and I kept wondering what the hell was wrong, as the playback devices showed everything as working properly blah blah... and I really can't stand re-installing everything, so it was either find a solution or buy some decent external speakers!

Anyway, so yeah, I tried the same thing you said above, by running a song, while I had headphones connected, and then doing a "test" from the speaker setup... but instead i got the test playing through the speakers, not the song (as you describe) I click it enough times and it eventually tells me "This device is currently being used by another program" or something like that, warning me if I really want to continue...so i click Yes
And so after that laptop speakers work!

So if you don't have my luck, atleast you'll now know the problem lies with the hardware being tied up with some program/process that died eons back.

 

Bump!

I think I figured this out. Got to IDT Audio Control > Preferences > Minipanels, select Speakers/Headphones in first drop down, then press the launch button.

Worked on my sisters laptop, hope it works for you.

 

what do you mean with.. PRESS LAUNCH BUTTON??

thanks a lot

 

sorry for my ignorance ... i hav the same problem too

what do you mean by RC1 and RTM ?

 

To elaborate mono's response:



The IDT Audio Control Panel is in Control Panel...

@gaablu

RC1 v RTM: just different versions. RC1 is still a beta product, RTM is the final code.

Yeah, I'm bored.

~Ibrahim~

 

I realize this is an old thread, but I neeeeeeeeed to get this fixed! I got the exact same problem two days ago and it's still going on. When I play music through external speakers the sound works fine, but it won't work through the on-board speakers. The only time sound will play through the on-board speakers is when I click "Test" on Independent(R.T.C.) Headphones in the Sound from the Control Panel. My only twist is that I get sound playing from my on-board speakers when I launch Skype and when I close Skype, for the two seconds or so it takes skype to launch. It will play the skype launch noise as well as whatever music or sound I am playing through the external speakers.

The solution given does not work for me. Is there anybody else who has had success with a different solution?

EDIT:
I got really frustrated and just started closing everything in my process tree... then opening and closing skype like 100 times, and testing the speakers over and over again. Then all of a sudden every time I hit test, it would freeze and that really got me annoyed. I yanked out my speakers and then all of a sudden WOW the music was still playing, through my on-board speakers....
....
It isn't working anymore. I spoke too soon. As soon as I paused my music, then tried playing it again, it wouldn't work. Now I can't even open my iTunes, when I run IDT Audio Control and try to test the speakers, it freezes up, and also it claims that I have headphones plugged into the last headphone jack when I have nothing plugged in.
I am a college student and carry the laptop with me all over the place. Often I have headphones plugged in or my speakers and subwoofer plugged in, but when I am sitting on my bed or anywhere else, I would be much happier without headphones on my ears.

 

Not sure if my problem was identical (with my 1645), but once when I removed my headphones, the computer still thought the headphones were attached (as reported by the audio control panel). So it would not play any sounds except through the headphones. After a few days, it fixed itself. Possibly because I unplugged it for awhile and removed the battery, but I really don't know.

 

Disable the audio service or whatever, its the IDT driver to auto-detect jacks and it sucks. I very occasionally had this problem, if I unplugged the headphones too fast I'd lose sound all together. Disabled the audio service, which was reported in another thread and Ive never looked back. Fixes the problem and a few other inherent audio problems with the 164X's. I disabled IDT control panel all together. Just using the driver. Much better.


PS. I know you want a fully working system but to be honest the onboard speakers suck...Shouldnt care too much..I mean you have external speakers and probably will use those anyway?

 

Now I can't play music through any means. I press play and whatever platform I am using will just freeze; with WMP it just says Connecting..., iTunes won't even open (though the process iTunes.exe shows up in the taskbar), youtube freezes up.

When I go to Control Panel -> Sound, it says its not responding. This is what I get.


When I open IDT HD Audio, and try to Test Speakers, it freezes up too. As you can see on the right of the picture, it says there is a headphone in the 3rd jack, when there is not. . I'm lost in what to do!!


Also, this may help. When it freezes up and I have to close it, it says "Windows Shell Common Dll is not responding"

 

I haven't fixed the problem yet either (which is why I am subscribed to this thread ). I am about to take it into Dell and force them to fix it or give me a new PC because it's happened on both my Windows 7 installations.

 

crogersss, did you try disabling the audio service as tenknics suggested?

Although the audio on my headphones never stopped working, I did have the same problem where it thought headphones were always connected. The problem fixed itself. One thing to try is unplugging the computer and removing the battery for a bit.

Before the computer fixed itself, Dell was going to send out a technician to replace my motherboard.

 

how do i disable the audio service?

 

You have to be logged in as the administrator to actually disable it. In Control Panels, go to System and Security, then Administrative Tools, then Services. In the Services window you'll see Audio Service listed. Double click it to bring up a dialog where you can stop the service and also disable it (by setting startup type to disabled). At this point I'd try rebooting to see if it clears up the problem.

If you want the service back for some reason just go back and set startup type to automatic.

This is not something that I tried while I was having the problem, but it seems like it could help.

 

There was a previous thread complaing about nose crackling and skipping. I think this is related. A solution then was to just uninstall the IDT driver and reboot and let Windows install its on HD audio driver. The problem with that is you lose some of your laptops functionality.

Im sure these issues are all related because like I previously posted, sometimes my laptop would lag behind my actions..like if I unplugged my headphones sometimes no sound would come out of the speakers because the IDT driver is written poorly and thought I still had headphones on. I'd either have to reboot, plug my headphones back in (which would get sound) and then unplug them again. Sometimes I'd get sound back other times I wouldnt.


Here is my solution that I think will solve a lot of these IDT related problems. Don't uninstall the IDT driver. Disable the Audio Service by IDT like previously stated. If you want to disable SRS Premium sound effects, change the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IDT\Apo\LFX\Speaker1\plugins\SRS and D-WORD string "load" to 0. Viola! This fixed everything for me. Even if you disabled the SRS effects, they would always re-enable themselves after reboot. This caused the popping, crackling and delay to go away and then disabling the audio service should fix no sound problems as its the IDT auto jack sensor, which causes a lot of problems. You will still have IDT driving your sound with the control panel and all its options. Its just no longer will the EQ be forced on be default (which causes a lot of the problems people are reporting).

 

Thanks for the response tenknics, but that didn't help me. In fact, my sound problem has gotten a lot worse. I try to test speakers and get this message "Failed to play test tone".

 

Just talked to Dell and they are sending out a new Audio chip for detection of headphones and a new motherboard in case the audio chip doesn't fix it. He also said they were sending out some speakers for me too! If you still have complete care I suggest you do the same.

 

I fixed it in the most idiotic way. If you are having the same problem where IDT Audio detects a headphone in the jack when there is nothing in there, just take a headphone and put it in the defective jack and wiggle it around until the computer recognizes there is nothing there. This obviously isn't a technical solution but it worked for me . Good luck everyone else.

 

Didn't work for me but found this YouTube - Fix sound on Dell Studio XPS 1640.
!!!!!

 

I was having the same problem on my XPS 16. The computer would detect a headphone connected when there was nothing.

I bought an audio board on ebay and replaced it myself and now it works again

 

SOLUTION,
I subscribed to this forum to give out the solution.
when you open de IDT sound control panel (just go to program IDT and choose the panel)
You will see the audio controls.
make sure you have the speakers selected (check mark on it) then on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE IDT PANEL you will see an image with the 3 jacks of the laptop.
Click on the left one and choose the speakers.
you can basically do the same with the middle one.
THAT SHOULD FIX YOUR PROBLEM
everything is on that little image, you have the option to change what is being recognized.
Cool uh?
no need to uninstall anything, no need to purchase anything.