Has anyone else experienced problems with the sound on the Acer Travelmate 2942 WLMi laptop or any other that uses the Realtek HD Audio chipset? The operating system is Windows XP Pro and the version of the Realtek driver is 5.10.0.5273.
My new laptop has a number of related problems which I first noticed when I used it to speak on Paltalk, but which on closer investigation affect other usage as well.
I've restored to factory state using Acer's Factory Restore facility of eRecovery, but to no avail. The problem exists with the PC in the exact factory state, as well as with the latest Windows and Norton AV updates.
In the following descriptions, I'm referring to the Mixer tabsheet of the Realtek HD Audio Manager applet, specifically to the Record controls.
The problems are:
1. With the Record input set to Microphone, sound recorded from the microphone (internal or external) at a lower sampling rate than 44 kHz is distorted: it's mushy and sounds as if i have a lisp, "as if I have a sock in my mouth" as someone described it. The distortion gets worse as the sampling rate is reduced. Listen to http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/recording at 8 kHz.wav for an example. Compare with the 44 kHz one downsampled to 8: http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/recording at 44 kHz downsampled to 8kHz.wav
2. The microphone (int or ext) only plays through the left channel rather than both channels.
3. If headphones or external speakers are plugged into the headphone socket, the Stereo Mix input is muted. The Stereo Mix input works fine (no distortion) at any sampling rate, so it's possible to use this (subject to the restriction that a stereo recording only hears the microphone on the left channel because of Problem 2) but becomes less useful if you can't monitor using headphones, only the crappy built-in speakers. I've established that it is the act of plugging anything into the headphone socket which mutes the input, not the electrical load that is presented: if I plug in a cable with nothing on the other end, the input is still muted.
I've reported the first symptom to Acer and their "helpful" reply was "always try to sample at the highest rate and then down-convert if necessary" which ignores the fact that many instant messaging programs such as Paltalk, MSN and Skype control the sampling rate themselves and sample at a low rate (8 or 11 kHz) to keep the network bandwidth low.
One other thing: how long would you expect the silver paint on the mouse buttons of the touchpad to last? Within a few days of getting my laptop at the end of January the silver paint was starting to wear off the left button where my thumb and thumbnail rub on it. It's not important but it does make the laptop look crap and as if it's been heavily used for a long time. See http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/Acer TM 2492WLMi mouse button 1.jpg for photo taken after about a week from new. Since then the worn-off patch has grown to about 1 centimetre in diameter.
Despite all these problems, I'm generally very pleased with my laptop. I had to search long and hard to find one which still has a proper matt screen rather than the appalling highly-glossy screens which are no use to man nor beast because they reflect you, the window frames and the room lights in the screen. Hardly fit for purpose for a laptop which will be used in the car, on a train or in customers' houses to diagnose IT problems.
My new laptop has a number of related problems which I first noticed when I used it to speak on Paltalk, but which on closer investigation affect other usage as well.
I've restored to factory state using Acer's Factory Restore facility of eRecovery, but to no avail. The problem exists with the PC in the exact factory state, as well as with the latest Windows and Norton AV updates.
In the following descriptions, I'm referring to the Mixer tabsheet of the Realtek HD Audio Manager applet, specifically to the Record controls.
The problems are:
1. With the Record input set to Microphone, sound recorded from the microphone (internal or external) at a lower sampling rate than 44 kHz is distorted: it's mushy and sounds as if i have a lisp, "as if I have a sock in my mouth" as someone described it. The distortion gets worse as the sampling rate is reduced. Listen to http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/recording at 8 kHz.wav for an example. Compare with the 44 kHz one downsampled to 8: http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/recording at 44 kHz downsampled to 8kHz.wav
2. The microphone (int or ext) only plays through the left channel rather than both channels.
3. If headphones or external speakers are plugged into the headphone socket, the Stereo Mix input is muted. The Stereo Mix input works fine (no distortion) at any sampling rate, so it's possible to use this (subject to the restriction that a stereo recording only hears the microphone on the left channel because of Problem 2) but becomes less useful if you can't monitor using headphones, only the crappy built-in speakers. I've established that it is the act of plugging anything into the headphone socket which mutes the input, not the electrical load that is presented: if I plug in a cable with nothing on the other end, the input is still muted.
I've reported the first symptom to Acer and their "helpful" reply was "always try to sample at the highest rate and then down-convert if necessary" which ignores the fact that many instant messaging programs such as Paltalk, MSN and Skype control the sampling rate themselves and sample at a low rate (8 or 11 kHz) to keep the network bandwidth low.
One other thing: how long would you expect the silver paint on the mouse buttons of the touchpad to last? Within a few days of getting my laptop at the end of January the silver paint was starting to wear off the left button where my thumb and thumbnail rub on it. It's not important but it does make the laptop look crap and as if it's been heavily used for a long time. See http://www.martinunderwood.f9.co.uk/acer/Acer TM 2492WLMi mouse button 1.jpg for photo taken after about a week from new. Since then the worn-off patch has grown to about 1 centimetre in diameter.
Despite all these problems, I'm generally very pleased with my laptop. I had to search long and hard to find one which still has a proper matt screen rather than the appalling highly-glossy screens which are no use to man nor beast because they reflect you, the window frames and the room lights in the screen. Hardly fit for purpose for a laptop which will be used in the car, on a train or in customers' houses to diagnose IT problems.
