General Discussion

[#1]

I have been corresponding with a couple of people from Lenovo via e-mail.  I have basically been stonewalled and told that this is not a "broken system" issue, so I shouldn't expect a response any time soon, but they will add it to the list of issues.

That said, have you managed to find out anything, Mark?  I would really like to find a way to get this issue resolved without having to resort to trying to convince my boss to drop another $70 or $80 on another sound card for a computer I just convinced her to drop $1500 on in the first place.

Thank you,

Duane Smith

[#2]

it might be an additional $70-80 for you, but for the xseries notebooks its looking closer to a $200 addition.

Since our machines don't  have the express card slot & aren't compatible with the Creative PCMCIA Audigy 2 zs, the next pcmcia card i've found is the Echo Indigo IO PCMCIA card, and it remains to be seen if it shares similar incompatibilites are the creative w/ the ricoh controller. I'm still researching and will report my findings.

[#3]

Actually, drtigerlilly, I'm not totally sure on the price of the card.  For a while, I had an e-mail conversation going between my vendor and 2 folks in the food chain at Lenovo about this mess.  About the time I asked the Lenovo folks what kind of sound card they would recommend for this thing to correct the issues, they quit talking to me completely.  The conversation had been going on for a few days, and they had asked if I needed recommendations as to what sound card to get.  When I broke down and asked for the "recommendation", I suddenly got no more responses.

I will say one thing for this little experience.  I've learned exactly how "good" the support and customer satisfaction concern levels are at Lenovo.  Maybe next time I should listen to the senior network admin when he tells me to order an HP instead of a Lenovo. 

[#4]

All,

Thanks for you patience as this was investigated through engineering.  The official answer provided is as follows:

"The '61 series systems do not have any way to provide the same loopback function or

"Stereo Mix" that previous systems have provided. This is by design of the hardware.

There cannot be any driver update to enable this function as the hardware layer does

not support it."

I do not have any more information as to why this feature was not carried forward as a requirement in the development of the '61 series ThinkPads, as many members have noted the capability on prior systems in the forum discussion around this issue.   I am not aware of any specific reason for the omission.

Message Edited by Mark_Lenovo on 04-18-2008 08:33 AM

[#5]

Thank you for the Answer, Mark. 

That brings up the obvious question.  Is there anything at all that Lenovo can or will do to help us to alleviate this problem?

Thank you again for checking.

Duane

[#6]

Thank you for taking the time to investigate this matter for us and thank you for the official response.


Keisha Barwise


Message Edited by drtigerlilly on 04-19-2008 06:16 AM

[#7]

I have decision control over the laptop I get at work.  This feature lack of the 61p will be a deciding factor should another manufacturer have this feature.  I'm very disappointed that Lenovo eliminated a feature that has been around for years.

[#8]

I have a hard time believing Lenovo disabled stereo mix by design on the T61/p machines. Why would any company do that, unless it is the influence from the RIAA, but still, this makes for absolutely no logical sense at all. To provide the best engineered laptops, and yet take away a few features doesn't exactly cut it. So if I want stereo mix, I gotta buy the upcoming T500?

[#9]

> I have a hard time believing Lenovo disabled stereo mix by design on the T61/p machines

I seem to recall reading this has been reported in other messageboard posts  for other vendor machines as well.  I think  that some vendors may have addressed it while others have not.  I agree it makes no sense.

>So if I want stereo mix, I gotta buy the upcoming T500?

Other posts have indicated success by using a Creative Labs SoundBlaster  X-Fi Xtreme  Audio Notebook card (~$80 USD) under XP while Vista is a bit more iffy.  

[#10]

Remember that the XiFi Soundblaster is only applicable, if you have an express card slot, which not all the machines in the x6x/t6x lineup have.

Machines with PCMCIA slots can't use PCMCIA Soundcards, due to an incompatibility with the controller.

That leaves USB soundcards for those machines, but there is no documentation that, it is actually a viable solution, eecon has mentioned on other forums that he's been unsuccessful with the usb soundcards he's tried.