Windows 7 - External Speakers work, Laptop speakers do not

Hi all,

I have a Dell XPS M1330 laptop and have recently upgraded to windows 7 professional (32bit) from windows vista. Everything seems to be running smoothly except I can get no sound from the internal laptop speakers. When I plug in external speakers in via the jacks on the front, sound comes through fine, but as soon as I unplug them there is nothing. Headphones also work like this too. Under sounds in device manager, it simply says 'High Definition Audio Device', and I'm not sure if I should be downloading some other drivers?

Any advice is welcome!
Thanks.

What do you have set as your default sound device? Mine is set to my external speakers.

Yeah I've played around there. The internal/external speakers both appear as 'High Definition Audio Device' so it's always as the default when they're plugged in or not. Still no luck.

Below is a picture showing the speakers I have selected when trying to play through my laptop:



Any help please?

Edit: Also I have just downloaded the latest RealTek drivers from the stickied topic, ran setup and rebooted, still no luck with no through the internal laptop speakers.

Have you tried the "configure" to select the speakers? I don't know if the laptops have an option in the configure for internal speakers, but worth checking.

Thats the picture I get, and when I click Test, both the speakers flash but there is no sound. Should the picture be showing the laptop speakers instead of what look to be external ones in the picture?

I don't know, but disconnect any external speakers before you try to configure.

Are you using the Dell sound drivers? On many Dell's using non-Dell sound drivers will either not work or not work correctly. I do a lot of Dell user forum support (but not much in the Laptop area) and we see a lot of problems from non Dell drivers in the Desktop section.

Dell downloads do not have any Win 7 drivers, just Vista for the SigmaTel sound (not the later IDT drivers). In most cases the Vista drivers will work. Here is the Dell Vista 32 bit SigmaTel driver. Drivers and Downloads

Depending on what drivers you have now, you may want to completely remove them, restart the PC and install the Dell drivers.

This thread was about 'low sound', but you might find it helpful with your settings
Low sound volume

Fireberd, thanks a lot. I did exactly what you said and it worked a treat, thanks a lot! And thanks for all the other responses too, much appreciated.

Not sure why you would do that, as from what I can see looking here,

Drivers & Downloads

the only driver available for that laptop is a Sigmatel driver. It is for Vista but it should work in Win 7.

P.S. For Jacee, yours is missing the driver as well, and it is the same Sigmatel based audio as salisbury88's. That's why both your screen shots are the same and not showing what the audio device is, only that it is "High Definition Audio Device"; all it is using is whatever default driver was installed by Windows.

The fun part is that Sigmatel (also known as IDT) do not support any of their audio chipsets at the consumer level, it is entirely up to the the motherboard and/or computer manufacturer that used a board with that chipset on it to get the drivers from Sigmatel. There are enough threads here on just this,

Windows 7 Forums - Search Results

with quite a few workarounds to get drivers to actually work.