T40 sound not working after motherboard replaced....bad sound card?

Question

Hello, 
I recently brought back to life my old t40 2373-75U by switching out the motherboard (it would no longer charge batteries) with a used R51 1830 motherboard (which I believe was a recommended upgrade by someone on this site).  
Anyways, long story short - I have the gently used motherboard now installed and the machine is up and running with my old T40 hard drive.  I also have XP-SP3 installed on it, and just had to make a few minor driver updates...everything seems to be working great, EXCEPT I have no sound.
I have tried everything I can think of:  
Software:
-un-installing and re-installing the audio driver several times
-installing the 2004 version of the hotkey driver (the 2013 version did not work with my system) because the Access IBM and volume buttons were not working and I thought that might be the culprit
-I believe I updated the BIOS drivers, but not sure if I "flashed" it...admittedly, I don't even know how to do that.
Hardware:
-the hardware in device manager shows that it's working properly
-I've performed the "test hardware" function through the control panel/device manager and it shows a signal with my USB "test" microphone going in and a signal coming out, but still no sound is actually coming out
-lastly, I've tried connecting external speakers to the headphones jack and still nothing..
At this point, all I can think is that the sound card is bad.
Would you agree with this assessment or am I forgetting something?
Thanks for your help.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with Linux Mint as I have been a Fedora guy for a long time, but since LM7 was
released in 2009, all audio drivers should be present for your machine. But, as I said, that could
be different for LM.
But you shouldn't have to do anything further regarding codecs or anything else, and since the Soundmax
uninstallation also removed the device as well, then it should be completely reset in the OS. Alas, is there
anything from Via in Control Panel - Add/Remove programs? If so, you should remove that before proceeding.
The driver for your machine is here:
Audio driver for Windows XP
And if you already installed this version, the driver can be found @ C:\DRIVERS\WIN\AUDIO
I did some rummaging through various forums today in regards to your issue, and found this one,
a couple of R51 users chime in there too.
http://forums.windrivers.com/printthread.php?t=73987&pp=40
and in the above link, a user found a solution by following the advise in this post:
http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/audio-drivers-not-found.14328/#post-184512
But instead of getting the drivers mentioned there, you could point to the installation location I
posted above.
One thing they mention in these threads, is running
sfc /scannow 
in a command prompt, which checks your OS for essential system files, but for XP you'll
almost certainly need the Windows XP installation media.
Finally, here is another thread on audio issues for a R51 user:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f19/solved-ibm-r51-no-sound-512806.html
Sorry for a bit muddled reply, but there you go... something to sink your teeth in at least.
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