Equal Left & Right Speaker Balance Causes T61 Audio Volume To Go To Zero on Front Audio Jack. [ Edited ]

[rmyork]

Equal Left & Right Speaker Balance Causes T61 Audio Volume To Go To Zero on Front Audio Jack. -- SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio

When the left and right sound channels on the T61 sound card are set to be equal, no sound comes out of the front speaker jack for IE8 or Windows Media Player.

Shifting the L and R off equal (e.g. Left 20 and Right 30) the sound comes back on.

Moving them back toward equal setting slowly decreases the speaker volume until it is gone.

I reloaded and reinstalled the SoundMAX driver, but no change.

I really didn't notice this until we started with iTunes which definitely notices L and R levels on playback.  Setting L = R and, whoops, no sound at all.

And, this doesn't happen to the onboard T61 speakers.  They work as you would expect the L & R to work.

I am setting speaker balance from Control Panel -> Sound  -> Speakers -> Levels -> Balance

This is really bizarre.

BTW, 64-bit Vista

Any suggestions?   I'd like equal L & R balance AND volume from the front jack.

Message Edited by rmyork on 08-14-2009 09:51 AM

[chrisjsmith]

I've got the same problem - did you find a solution?

[rmyork]

Nope. Even with reloading current audio drivers and later, a complete system restore after a full / update and reload of Vista-64.
I gave up. Maybe you will be more successful. Good luck and let us know if you find a solution.

[chrisjsmith]

Thanks for the reply.  I've literally done a complete rebuild of the machine with W7 x64 as well to no avail.

Going to try and boot a Linux LiveCD and see if it's a driver or hardware issue. I fear the latter.

Long-term solution-wise, I'm going to resort to some USB Sennheiser headphones I've got lying around and disable the sound in the BIOS.