6810 no sound, processor changing speed...hinges cracked, flicker

Hey all,
I bought my 'top about 18 months ago when it was by far the best deal on the market. The day after I bought it, my car broke down and I needed the money back. Of course when I took it in to Worst Buy, they would not accept it back because the hinge was already cracked. How could that have happened? I only bought it a day ago...

Of course I know now that all I did was look at it wrong while it was sitting on my desk..or maybe it was always cracked. I got the flicker too, but this post isn't about any of this. Despite all that, this 'top has taken everything I could throw at it...metaphorically speaking.

My sound stopped working. I had just done a facory restore due to some kind of virus, so it was spotless to begin with. The sound stopped 2 days later. I updated drivers for board, sound, directx. Nothing. In fact, the new RealTek drivers kept the device from starting. I can uninstall and reinstall the hardware as it still autodetects...and says it is working...but its not. Winamp just stops playing files. Something is screwed.

I also noticed during my many reboots that my processor speed was changing in the Windows System window. Sometimes it would be 2.0Ghz, sometimes 1.2 and sometimes 800 mhz! This can't be good. I have not messed with any overclocking, changing of bus speeds or anyhting like that

I know my way around PC hardware, but have never worked on a laptop. The sound is on the board right? So it can't be replaced. Any suggestions? I am trying to figure out how to disassemble the thing right now.

Below are things I have tried.

-Uninstall and reinstall hardware. (several times)
-New 17Mb install file from RealTek (stopped device from starting)
-New 7Mb driver file (Stops device)
-Rollback to old driver. (Starts device, says it is working...but it's lying)
-Windows trouble shooter (Always so helpful...sigh)
-Update drivers for VIA chipset, Direct X, RealTek (Used 6811 drivers from emachines)
-Full scans by Norton, SpyDoctor, AVG and Panda. (Found some tracer cookies)
-Before it stopped working I had all Windows updates.
-I again restored it to factory condition without wiping the drive.
-Made sure it was unmuted (hey, people do that)

I think it stopped working when I tried to plug a microphone in to the back. Could that have shorted it out?

Thanks so much for any help that comes my way. I'm at a loss.

Mike

Edit: Uh...I pulled it out again at work and was going to take it apart, but I didn't have teh right scewdriver. I flipped it on and the sound worked...so 6 hours ofo work on this thing and it works...but I didn't DO anything to make it work. Glitch?

So its fixed...sort of.

 

Gateway/Emachines should fix tghe hinges if you contact them. that was a big problem with this line. The Processor speed is not a problem, its Powernow! technology in the works. If you want it to run at 2.0 constant, put your power scheme on always on or home office/desk. If its on portable laptop or anything of the such it adjusts the voltage and speed according to the cpu load it is receiving. This gets you better battery life and performance when you need it. It's a good thing to have on all mobile processors. Its one of the big things that makes them "mobile". I'm working on a Sticky to explain powernow!/speedstep in depth, but thats the jist of it.

 

I have an M5405 with a similar problem, and I wonder if it's the same issue.

The laptop sound worked fine for about a year and a half, then all of a sudden, sound would cut out after the machine had been operating for several minutes (after turning on or coming out of sleep mode). Upon further investigation, it seems that the sound is not cutting out completely, but rather the volume is reduced to an almost inaudible level (even when various volume levels are all set to the max).

I'm not sure if it's a hardware problem or a driver issue, however, any driver updates I've attempted (Realtek), have not resolved the issue.

If anyone else has come across this, I'd much appreciate your insight.

-Rusty