Not sure if they still have that version posted, but give this matrix a shot:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-62928

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 62855.html

eecon-
"Does the Creative Console Launcher also offer a "What-U-Hear" recording option under your Vista installation?"
I'm afraid I don't know what that would be. If you mean literally, an option with that title? Not that I've seen. What should I explore to be sure?

How can earphones provide a 5.1 sound when you've only got two ears to put them on?? Multiple discrete drivers in each? Or...Is this more trickery with phasing and fx? (Not that "trickery" is a bad thing, I'm just wondering how son-of-quad-sound translates into headphones.)

Good stereo keeps me happy enough, that's what most of my music was recorded in. IF I get happy about this sound card, IF there are no big surprises, I'll also order the module for the card, figuring I may use it sometime in the future.

Funny thing about the microphone: Whatever Creative did to the system, appears to be STUCK in the system. Even with the XFi unplugged it still has the Thinkpad's mic fully enabled, and that produces a nasty feedback squeal when I close the display to sleep the laptop. I had to totally disable the mic in the sound control panel to stop this. Manually.

I'm used to other sound-using apps (i.e. Skype) enabling the mic when they need it (during a call) and DISabling it again when they shut down. Apparently Creative enables it--even when the computer's input is set to the external card and LINE IN. And then never disables it.

For some reason I'm reminded of the old Monty Python skit where two officers slap each other with large fish. I think whoever castrated the audio in these notebooks, and whoever runs Creative, should be forced to fish-slap each other until one of them falls down from exhaustion. Such silly silly people, going out of their way to complicate our lives. With or without RIAA assistance.

As the RIAA and MPA(?) are slowly finding out, when you piss out the entire customer base by ripping them off for a couple of decades...the customers find ways to live without you. May they all hang in the wind and die a slow death. Greedy b@stards.

I'm talking about using 6 different external speakers like any standard 5.1 system .... you need the special optional surround sound adapter to connect them via the X-fi.

http://us.creative.com/products/product ... duct=16741

As for my headphones ... they are standard stereo and plug directly into the X-fi without the adapter.

Regarding the "What-U-Hear" recording source option, that is how it is labeled (What-U-Hear), so if you don't see it under Vista then the drivers are not fully operational.

Nope, no "What-U-Hear".

The only recording options in the sound control applet, are the native system hardware, and one option for the XFi card, which changes between Mic and Line-In depending on what option has been chosen in the "Entertainment" Console Launcher. (And then, varying quality levels available under that.) They weren't even slick enough to make that choice available in the Sound applet, the external Console has to be run to push that.

Beats nothing--but not by much, so far.

I just learned about the David_K lawsuit and all yesterday, how bizarre that Creative would sue him instead of hiring him, or buying his work on drivers. What's the Kenyan saying? "When the elephants dance no one is safe" ?

Your experience is consistent with what I've heard from others regarding the X-fi Notebook's compatibility with Vista .... Creative's Vista X-fi drivers and/or software are not quite ready for prime-time. Whether Creative chooses to update drivers to fix the Vista issues, or simply move-on to a new generation of hardware (the X-fi 2 .... see the second link) will be interesting. I would bet that they will probably do both, so some patience here may be warranted on our part.

Regarding the David_K issue, here are a couple of links that Vista users may find helpful:

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?p=2108710

Which USB soundcard models have you tried?

As for USB solutions, you name it and I tried it (unsucessfully).

I was looking at Turtle Beach's Audio Advantage series, any experience with those?

No, that is one model I specificially did not try .... sorry.

I've posted a new thread at:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 25f#411307

and would appreciate replies there. Seems like my mic is always live--even when it has been disabled. Can anyone give me a reality check on what that's all about and maybe how to fix it?

I just wanted to let everyone know that there is a thread on this subject over at the Lenovo boards that now has someone from Lenovo wanting input as to what things people want to do that "stereo mix" being gone keeps them from doing. I have put in my 2 cents worth as to all the things I can't do because of it, and I would recommend all of you drop by there and put in your things as well.

Here is the URL to get there:

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Special_Interest_General&thread.id=316

Thank you,
Duane

Audrey those drivers don't work, I tried them before they're a different model (ad1981hd) but the long & short of it is that they don't work.

revduane, i've posted over there, but i don't even know what the point is....i don't truly believe that the hardware is incapable of doing the stereo mix as they say, i just don't think they care, and they've decided they're not releasing drivers.

I've posted my 2c but at this time i really feel like what's the point...by the way, i'm DRTigerlilly on Lenovo Forums.

I figured that was who you were, Doc.

I'm not sure it will help either, but I want to take away every excuse that I can from them.

I've noticed one thing, though. Since Mark posted that over there and I put the link in here, I've been getting TONS of thread update e-mails. Guess there really ARE a few people that are wanting their 'puters to just work the way they are supposed to. Go figure.

Duane

I am one of the fortunate few who have successfully used an Express/54 slot external X-fi sound card to restore all recoding capabilities on my T61 (using WinXP and not Vista) and no longer have a dog in this fight.

However, I'll take the liberty here to add my take on what I believe is happening with a short historical and political perspective about the root cause that led to Lenovo and other Asian owned manufacturers to disable sound recording capabilities recently:

As we all have read in the news, copyright violations and pirating of intellectual property has been a hot button issue for years here in the USA, and much of the concern was directed at Asian countries where most of the copyright abuse had allegedly been occuring.

Asian leaders are obviously sensitive to this issue and they are constantly being urged by U.S. trade officials to crack down on alleged copyright pirating. With China's welcome into the World Trade Organization in 2001 and its recent upgrade to preferred member nation trading status with the U.S., it makes complete sense for Lenovo to give U.S. politicians and RIAA lobbyists what they wanted, including sound recording crippled laptops.

As U.S. consumers slowly begin to complain (and believe me, the snowball has only begun rolling down the hill and will be getting larger and larger over the coming months), the Asian manufacturers will be hearing more and more complaints which they will wisely forward to all those U.S. trade officials and RIAA lobbists. Eventually the Asian leaders may also politely advise those same U.S. trade officials that if we continually upset the consumer masses in order to simply line the pockets of U.S. software companies, wealthy entertainment executives, rock-stars, etc., the mass public may simply shop elsewhere (or worse yet, stop shopping all together). And if they start shopping elsewhere or stop altogether, then Asian countries will earn less money and thus buy less U.S. Treasury debt. This will push U.S. interest rates up again in order to attract other buyers of U.S. debt so we Americans can continue spending beyond our means like drunken sailors ...... spending both personally and via proxy for U.S. military adventures overseas, et al.

This issue reminds me of the wise-old saying "be careful what you wish for."

I believe Lenovo's management is quietly handling this issue wisely.

Welcome everyone to our new global economic reality

eecon, I'd say you still have a dog in the fight in a way. You were forced to go spend extra cash to purchase something to do what you thought that fancy new laptop would already do.

BTW, I agree with pretty much everything you said, just for the record.

Duane

i'm not 100% convinced its the RIAA stuff, i'm honestly more inclined to go w/ Marks cost cutting theory.

b/c it just seems strange that you'd remove the feature due to RIAA pressure & then put it back...it just seems kinda flip flop to me.
and to date Dell, Hp & Toshiba have stereo mix enabled in their machines. Asus also has the feature enabled on their desktops, can't speak to their notebooks...

i'm more inclined to think that they thought it was a feature noone used, and noone would miss, and that they could get away w/ removing it & saving themselves the money from licensing etc, b/c no doubt they have to pay for each feature that is enabled in the sound card.

Actually, I had this nice brand new box of Creative 5.1 surround sound speakers sitting in my storage room for a couple of years and needed a way to connected them to my docked T61 desktop replacement (the large tower case now only serves as a stand to set upon my scanner). The X-fi, with the optional surround sound connector, was needed to enable the 5.1 system.

Basically, I stumbled onto my own personal WinXP solution by blind and dumb luck on my part

Kindly remember that Dell, HP and Toshiba are not mainland Chinese owned companies .... there are probably secret international trade deals involved here that go well beyond my humble level of mere consumer.

Looks like things are heating up over at the Lenovo boards .... apparently Stereo Mix is now being reported to have been intentionally hardware-crippled and can not be resolved with a software driver update.

Looks like we may be viewing the early scenes of a protectionist trade war between the U.S. and the Chinese. It's about time the RIAA lobbists, software writers and entertainment types got one up the 'ol gazzoo (unfortunately at the expense of us recent X61/T61 buyers) regarding preaching intellectual property rights to the whole planet while it's population slowly starves to death ..... this should be interesting. Time to get some popcorn and enjoy the show over the next few years.

revduane previously asked members to post on lenovo forums to let them know the importance of the stereo mix feature, following a suggestion, i've created a poll here, so we can give som figures to Lenovo about the importance of the feature to us.

Please contribute your opinion.

I don't suppose this sound card driver update, posted 4/25/08, is anything encouraging?

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67816

Audio Features for Windows XP, 2000 - ThinkPad R61, R61i, T61, T61p, X61, X61s, X61 Tablet

This package provides the audio driver for Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4.
This package enables or updates the SoundMax Integrated Digital HD Audio function of the following systems:

- ThinkPad R61(type):
- 7732, 7733, 7735, 7736, 7737, 7738, 7742
- 7743, 7751, 7753, 7754, 7755
- 8914, 8918, 8919, 8920, 8927, 8928, 8929
- 8942, 8943, 8944, 8945, 8947, 8948, 8949

- ThinkPad T61, T61p
- ThinkPad X61, X61s, X61 Tablet

Summary of Changes

Version 5.10.1.5520

* (Fix) No sound recorded on the internal microphone.

Lenovo has indicated on their own community forum that the SoundMax Stereo Mix on the X61/T61 units is hardware crippled and that it can not be re-enabled by a software fix, so I seriously doubt this software driver update will do the trick.

But what the heck, maybe someone here can give it a try? As for me, I'm happy with the external X-fi express card solution with WinXP, so I'm going to take a pass on this one

Have followed all this a bit here and there, and saw that since I'm a (new) x61-er, I don't even have the xi-fi option. (But I'm a bit skeered of sound card driver updates in general lol, because I installed one on a 3000 C200 that made it lose its mind, even after rollback.)

Just in case anyone is trying something similar... I wanted to transfer some old cassettes to CD, so I went ahead and got the X-Fi Notebook card... despite having several computers kicking around with stereo inputs built into the main logic board. (I've had too much experience of low-level noise/cross-talk, and even occasional drop-outs with built-in audio.)

Anyway, I tried to do a minimal install of just the driver for the card. I succeeded in doing so, but the driver alone is unable to switch the input from mic level to line level. For that, you need to install and run a program called "Creative Console Launcher" (not the Creative Audio Console).

I don't understand their thinking, but it took quite a bit of digging through their web sites to figure this out, so I thought I'd share it here.

David ..... Yes you are correct and I simply assumed everyone initially installed the Console Launch via a Full or Typical install for their systems. It never dawned on me that one would not install the creative software that came with the X-fi. However, once you've installed the creative launcher, the standard WinXP recording control console can now also make the recording line-in input changes, etc

Again, I'm talking WinXP for me. I have not tried Vista.

BTW, are you using Vista or WinXP and how did the recording transfers turn out?

I was trying to be too clever for my own good. Ever since Nero 7, I've been trying to install just what I (think I) need and not automatically saddle my system with all the bloatware shipped with just about everything these days.

I am using Vista Ultimate, 32-bit, SP1. Oh, right. So much for avoiding bloatware

The transfer went just fine (only done one so far). I could not see any drop-outs in Audacity. I was surprised how little noise was in the recording, considering it's a "normal" cassette with just Dolby B. Probably the "weak link" in the system could be some extra cross-talk allowed by the common ground wire in the miniplug, but you're not going to notice that in an out-of-print, circa 1985 self-produced recording recorded in someone's living room by a folk trio out of the Chicago area! (They have gone on to record many later albums of top-notch quality.)

Thanks for the tip about being able to use the regular control panel to configure the jack; I hadn't seen that show up in the Vista version, but I will double-check.

David .... so it appears that you are the first Vista user to report successfull recording with the external X-fi solution.

A couple of questions for the benefit of other Vista users considering the external X-fi work-around recording solution:

1. What is the date of the version of Creative software are you using? .... I believe Creative posted a downloadable May 5, 2008 version for Vista-only users on their website. The WinXP users are using the Aug 2007 dated software drivers with no issues. Although the Aug07 drivers were listed as Vista compatible, they still had problems, thus the May 5, 2008 update posted on Creative's Support website.

2. Besides the Line-in input, do you also find a "What-u-Hear" recording input option on your recording panel(s)?

Greetings,

I hope someone who reads this uses their Thinkpad for Live audio recording!

I use my T61 for a lot of live audio recordings, and I am having some issues... I just received my new Lenovo three weeks ago, before I was using a Dell Inspiron 1000 with WinXP. The recordings worked out perfectlly on the Dell, (using Audacity to record.) We use an external mic, which is plugged into the mic in line.

My problem is this new T61 has a lovely little built in mic which I can't figure out how to mute. Now, I use the same mic plugged into the mic-in on the Lenovo, and it sounds as if once the mic is plugged into the laptop, the internal mic is muted. However, the built in mic seems to be recording sounds as well as the actual mic, which makes the track sound like Rubbish. In addition to that, when I try to listen to a fresh recording via a stereo connected to the laptop, the built in mic picks up the loud stereo and gives a continuing feedback. (This was also tested with out the mic plugged in to the laptop and the feedback was the same.)

Does anyone know how to mute that internal mic, or make the computer recognize the mic in jack as the only source for recording? I am running Vista Basic, and I have already tried right clicking under Recording Devices to see if there were any disabled properties.... and there weren't any. Help

I believe it's working properly for me (T61p). I regularly use the built-in microphone for Skype. Works better than my old Dell 8600 because it's physically near the front of the keyboard, not at the back. I opened up the Sound CP, recording tab and watched the VU meter as I made silly "la la" noises. (One advantage of a home office... only the cat to annoy!) This confirmed that the onboard microphone was hearing me. Then I plugged into the pink microphone jack at the left side a RCA->miniplug cable I'd been using for transferring some cassettes. No signal at the VU meter. I even opened Audacity and recorded a few seconds... no indication of any signal bleed-through; the noise is very close to zero; under 0.001 of full range=1.

I don't know if it should make any difference that I'm docked right now. More likely there's a difference between your main logic board and mine. If I'm reading the part lookup correctly, that's MFR 44C4239; FRU 42W7877 Planar FRU.

I downloaded drivers on April 21 which have a date of 3/4/2008 (March 4, I believe) in the Properties panel. I hadn't downloaded the May 8 package because it said "PCI Express," but I see that in the notes they include the notebook version. I will give that a try and report back.


No, though I suppose it's conceivable that I have missed installing something or it makes a difference that the card wasn't installed at boot. I believe I read somewhere on Creative's site that this function would not be supported under Vista. I also note that there appears to be no way to put the card into "Music Production" mode or whatever that is... "Entertainment mode" is the only option. But again, I'll see what I can find when I have a chance to try the May 8 driver package.