The onboard batteries should work for something like 15 years so that shouldn't be an problem. I got my 600E with a dead battery and I even ran it without a battery at all for a year to decrease weight. No problem with sound due to that.

That a poor onboard battery "should not" be an issue doesn't mean it can be an issue though. I have read a lot about the 600 series batteries but nowhere has sound problems been mentioned. I'm at a loss, really.


Håkan

Is there a way to "start from scratch" with sound? Maybe to remove all sound modules, both Alsa and OSS, then just load the ones that I want without having to recompile the kernel again? This sounds like the next right thing to do. I have tried some steps along these lines, but some of the modules were in use and I couldn't remove them. I couldn't even killall them!!!

I was having an email conversation with Thomas Hood about tpctl, asking him if he thought that application might help the situation. He told me that it would not, but he tried to help. He tried to force-unload all the Alsa modules by running /etc/init.d/alsa force-unload, but this doesn't exist on Slackware, or Minislack. I did try to force-unload on the /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa, but this didn't work; I don't know if this option was built while compiling the new kernel, but I'm almost sure that it was. Anyway, I have also tried unloading the modules manually, but the following are in-use and cannot be killed:

snd-op13-lib: Module not found, even though it shows as loaded when
running lsmod

snd-hwdep: Module in use.

snd-timer: Module in use.

snd: Module in use.

soundcore: Module in use.

Next, I tried loading snd-cs4236, but I get the following error:

FATAL: Error inserting snd_cs4236
(/lib/modules/2.6.101/kernel/sound/isa/cs423x/snd-cs4236.ko): No such device

When I run the killall commands, it returns a "no process killed" message to all three of the commands run.

If you know a way to remove all the modules and start over, please let me know.

Thanks again!

sax

First of all, thanks for all the helpful stuff here.
Ok ok ok . I've tried all this. Got it working -- ONCE. And ONLY once. Rebooted and can't get it again. I go through all the steps, mess re-init the bios, alsaconf, yada yada yada, and ... nothin. What rocks me is that I had it working once and think i've followed the same steps.
anyone else run into this? Works once, but not again?
it maaaaaaybe a blown bios battery, but i doubt it. It's not that it stops working after being off for a while, it just takes a reboot.

what reeeeeeeeaaally steams me is that it works fine under Winders. I just can't stand that "the other OS" can do something linux can't. I've even tried Suse and Mandrake, both (and btw, Mandrake 10.1 looks really niffty).

Any brilliant thoughts?
Thanks for anything.

I have a model 2645-4BU and I have found the sound card is NOT detected if "Quick Boot" is enabled. If I disable Quick Boot ( Press F1 on boot from power off and select config ) the card can be detected.

However, if I select the "initialize" icon from the same menu, Quick Boot will be enabled
again! So, I would disable Quick Boot and then Initialze and restart and the card would
be detected, but after another reboot I would get the "Device Not Found" again! Drive me crazy!

The modules are loaded on boot, no need to run alsaconf.

I now have sound, but it sounds terriable!? More work needed!

/etc/modprobe.conf on Fedora Core 3:
-----------------------------------------------------------
options snd device_mode=0666
alias snd-card-0 snd-cs4236
alias sound-slot-0 snd-cs4236
options snd-cs4236 port=0x530 cport=0x538 isapnp=0 dma1=1 dma2=0 irq=5

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
-------------------------------------------------------------

The option ports can be obtained from the DOS ps2.exe program.

gerald.

thanks gerald
i'll have to try this as soon as i get a chance. i think you're right about the initalize and the quick boot thing. i noticed that when i would turn quick boot off and reboot, sooner or later, it would just "magically" come back on (maybe i was running the initialize in between?).
currently, i've re-configured the box to run Winders, since i needed it. i'm planning on wiping it and putting linux back, so i'll let you know how that goes.
thanks again,
Have a good week!

I had the same problem when I tried the suggested fixes. I double checked my .config file for my 2.4.29 kernel to make sure the CS4232 driver was set as a module. The isa-pnp, ad1848, and uart401 modules were all loaded ok, but the cs4232 module doesn't seem to like to be inserted by insmod or anything. Anybody know why this error comes up? I'm using Slackware 10.1 btw.

ahh figured it out...had to turn off quick boot in the BIOS. Thats key for the driver to be recognized

heh, i have 2 thinkpad 600e's that i'm working on fixing for someone, if only i owned them and could play [and learn from them by playing with this stuff]

I own a thinpad 3xxED that doesn't have sound, itd be interesting if someone ever found a solution for that

Maybe this can help a bit:

http : / / thinkwiki.org / wiki / CS4236