T410 Extremely Annoying Audio Issues

[masterllama]

Sorry efofiks for the confusion, my post was directed toward coloneloneil and not toward you.

Anyhow, I have been getting PMs about the powermizer workaround I posted earlier so I thought i'd post the method here.  I have come to realize that this problem really isn't lenovo's fault.  It is Nvidia's.  They really should be doing something but they haven't for the past 2.5 years so I've given up.  This is the best option for now:

Do note that this will slightly reduce the performance of your graphics card.  I assume this won't matter to most business users anyway.

Method:

1. Install the latest Lenovo video graphics driver off the lenovo website or using your system update.

2. Download powermizer manager from http://somemorebytes.com/wp/index.php/software/nvpmmanager/ and run the program in admin mode.  Upon running it, it will say something about the registry files being missing.  Just dismiss the warning.

3. From within the powermizer manager, click on create powermizer settings and it should write the registry files.  Then click on enable powermizer feature.  Put it to auto throttle for the battery settings.  For the AC adapter, chose fixed performance level.  You can choose a performance level, but I recommend choosing medium performance here.

4. Click Apply.  It is safe to use instant apply but you can also apply and reboot if you'd like.

5. Download this registry file and apply it.  http://www.mediafire.com/?z8884g019mctavp

6. Reboot your computer.

At this point, you have done all you really can to reduce your DPC latency.  You can also feel free to disable your wifi, etc.

This is a picture of my DPC latency after doing the above.  This is with my antivirus ON, wifi ON, and automatic defragmenter ON.

I still get a spike here or there but it is MUCH better.

[groovydee]

Thanks for posting this info. I am running xp and have disables powermizer, and it's strange, when audio or video is running, the dpc latency looks like yours. When the computer is idle, it goes up to high greens and occasional yellows.

I read in an earlier thread that you installed another driver, from a gtx 250 or 260, instead of the original driver. Did this workaround work better than that one? What ever happened with the alternate driver workaround?

[jjahn]

may i ask you a question - how did you do the formatting and new installation -. my T410 denys the xp installation with a bluescreen and does also not want to have a new hdd (is not found...)

best regards,

jj

[masterllama]

This workaround works better than the old one I posted about.

The old one was because lenovo was previously on the 190 series of drivers.  But they've updated to the newer drivers now so this fix should be more stable.

[mcaro]

BSOD errors point to the display driver at the cause and said errors occur too often. On a side note, the computer wont come out of sleep about 10% of the time.

[michelbehr]

It worked for me! :-) Thanx a lot!!!

[ColonelONeill]

For the record, here's a 295.36, Quadro certified NVIDIA driver that may or may not work better:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-notebook-win7-winvista-64bit-296.35-whql-driver.html

[haha326]

Hey everyone, I started getting this issue recently after a windows update. Not sure if it was DPC or not, but my audio during specific parts of songs (always the same parts) would sound like what happens when you pull the headphone jack out an eighth of an inch (can still hear audio, but it sounds "far away" and muffled).

I tried a few things: updating to the latest NVIDIA NVS drivers (296.70), installing latest lenovo audio driver (4.95.48.50). No luck.

I went into my audio settings: Control Panel -> Sound -> Speakers (properties) -> Enhancements. Check "Disable all enhancements" and Apply. Fixed the problem for me. I'm curious if there is an effect not listed that was munging the audio output, perhaps from a third-party application.

I hope this solution works for at least a few other people, the audio problems were driving me insane. Good luck!

[dwalling]

I recently increased the RAM in my T410s from 1x4GB DIMM to 2x4GB. Immediately noticed, for the first time, the symptom described on this thread - sound through the audio jack using headphones switching intermittently every few seconds from what sounds/feels like mono and stereo. Upgraded the Thinkpad Power Manager from 1.64.00 to 6.30 and the problem is gone. This upgrade was "g6u420ww", released 7 June 2012 and available here: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-70601

[neotobarra]

I have the same problem commented: when I execute Civ4 Beyond The Sword, if Winamp is playing music (what happens everytime I execute Civ4 XD) the sound changes from stereo to mono, and it don't return to stereo until I close the game. I'm not user of Lenovo's software or hardware, but this thread is second or third on Google results about this problem, so I will explain how I fixed the problem. Maybe it can be useful for someone...

I just disabled integrated microphone in my computer. Here is what you should do: play some music (or anything that allows you to identify the problem) and go to "Control Panel" > "Sound" > "Recording", and listen carefully. If entering into this tab causes the problem happens again, simply disable microphone. I've taken a capture...

Link to image

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