No sound coming from laptop

dzirkelb said:

I did try looking in the bios; however, it seems odd. There was only a couple settings to change, not like a regular bios where there are all sorts of stuff you can modify.

Right, laptops generally have a limited BIOS selection.

Does the Sony have an "fn" key?
Holding it down can allow adjustments at the hardware level, it's possible to lower speaker volume and/or disable volume on some machines.

Ap

It does have an Fn key; however, it appears to not be working. I tested it on the brightness of the screen Fn key combination, and nothing happened.

dzirkelb said:

It does have an Fn key; however, it appears to not be working. I tested it on the brightness of the screen Fn key combination, and nothing happened.

Something is wrong then, the fn key on my 4yr old Acer laptop can change brightness during post or in the BIOS.

Even though doing a BIOS re-flash or upgrade can be a little risky it might be worth your time.


Ap

How do I do a bios re-flash again? I am fine with doing that as this laptop, without sound, is worthless to me. I am recommissioning it as a strict Boxee machine for a TV, and if there is no sound, then it is worthless to me.

dzirkelb said:

How do I do a bios re-flash again? I am fine with doing that as this laptop, without sound, is worthless to me. I am recommissioning it as a strict Boxee machine for a TV, and if there is no sound, then it is worthless to me.

Full instructions and BIOS download can be found here.

Sony eSupport - VGN-FE890 - Software Updates & Drivers

Double check that everything matches your system, read the instructions carefully, you can turn it into a doorstop.

You should probably be running Vista when doing this as that's what the Utility calls for.

Ap

I have a fresh install of Vista on it currently, so I will try that when I get home, thanks.

dzirkelb said:

I have a fresh install of Vista on it currently, so I will try that when I get home, thanks.

Curious to know if the screen dim/brighten key combination works while in the BIOS, it could possibly be something like a non-working key.

Good luck-

Ap

Ok, the Fn key is definately not working, not even in the bios. is it possible the Fn key somehow turned the sound all the way down, even though the sound is shown at max on windows?

dzirkelb said:

Ok, the Fn key is definately not working, not even in the bios. is it possible the Fn key somehow turned the sound all the way down, even though the sound is shown at max on windows?

To be honest, I don't know..

I have an even older IBM Thinkpad and the fn key controls the hardware directly, turning the volume level up/down does not affect the Windows mixer levels, it strictly controls the hardware. The Acer controls the hardware up to a point then seems to turn over fn key functions to Windows. With the Win audio mixer open I can see the fn key volume adjustment moving the Winmixer master volume.

If you've exhausted all of the options..(in Audio setting) then the BIOS update may be the way to go.

Ap

well, i tried the obvoius, set the bios settings to he default settings, and viola, it works! Amazing what tryin one o the first things I should have tried does :)

Side note, the bios update wouldn't even run, said it was required to run on vista, when I have a fresh install of vists, so whatever :)