conexant driver hides line-in

[Brian K. White]

I have a HP zd7000 sereies laptop that has a Conexant CX20468 sound card +
modem chip.

The chip itself has Line-In pins, but the motherboard has nothing connected
to them.
I have looked at the chip directly and the pins really are not connected to
anything.

I have found the following reference for this chip
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa/ftp/datasheets/conexant/100965aSmartAMC-AudioModemCodec.pdf
and used it to wire up a line-in jack to the pins using a couple of 10uf
caps and some thin coaxial earbud headphone wire (sacrificed a cheap pair of
ear buds) and found that the line-in works great in FreeBSD 5.2-Current.
Almost certainly this means it works in Linux too.

However, the Windows XP driver for this laptop hides the line-in from any
mixer programs because they know that it can never be used, not even via the
"expansion base" that provides access to the spdif out that is not normally
available. The slider doesn't appear at all, not even greyed out, in
sndvol32 for instance.

So, how can I enable access to the line-in pins in windows?
I tried looking in the registry but didn't see anythung obvious.

Here is the vendor-supplied driver:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?product=353538&lang=en&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&os=228
specifically:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?product=353538&os=228&lang=en&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&softwareitem=ob-17747-1

You can unpack it without running it with winrar (probably with winzip too)
I tried looking at the inf file but basically got lost in the quagmire.

I tried to compare against another machine that uses the same chip but all I
found was the Fujitsu Lifebook c1010/c1020
http://download.fujitsu-siemens.com/treiber/drvupload.asp?DRV=31836&Info=Download
If that link doesn't work you can start at
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/servicesupport/index.html and navigate to
downloads, products, notebooks, professional notebooks, lifebook, c sereies,
c1020
But from the manual it looks like it doesn't have a line-in jack either! So
I don't think looking at it's driver's inf file will get me far.

I'm hoping I can just modify an inf file and reinstall the drivers, but I am
open to other less user-friendly approaches too.

thanks
--
Brian K. White -- -- http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD #callahans Satriani

[Brian K. White]

Brian K. White wrote:
> I have a HP zd7000 sereies laptop that has a Conexant CX20468 sound
> card + modem chip.
>
> The chip itself has Line-In pins, but the motherboard has nothing
> connected to them.
> I have looked at the chip directly and the pins really are not
> connected to anything.
>
> I have found the following reference for this chip
>
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa/ftp/datasheets/conexant/100965aSmartAMC-AudioModemCodec.pdf
> and used it to wire up a line-in jack to the pins using a couple of
> 10uf caps and some thin coaxial earbud headphone wire (sacrificed a
> cheap pair of ear buds) and found that the line-in works great in
> FreeBSD 5.2-Current. Almost certainly this means it works in Linux
> too.
>
> However, the Windows XP driver for this laptop hides the line-in from
> any mixer programs because they know that it can never be used, not
> even via the "expansion base" that provides access to the spdif out
> that is not normally available. The slider doesn't appear at all, not
> even greyed out, in sndvol32 for instance.
>
> So, how can I enable access to the line-in pins in windows?
> I tried looking in the registry but didn't see anythung obvious.
>
> Here is the vendor-supplied driver:
>
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?product=353538&lang=en&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&os=228
> specifically:
>
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?product=353538&os=228&lang=en&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&softwareitem=ob-17747-1
>
> You can unpack it without running it with winrar (probably with
> winzip too) I tried looking at the inf file but basically got lost in
> the quagmire.
>
> I tried to compare against another machine that uses the same chip
> but all I found was the Fujitsu Lifebook c1010/c1020
>
http://download.fujitsu-siemens.com/treiber/drvupload.asp?DRV=31836&Info=Download
> If that link doesn't work you can start at
> http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/rl/servicesupport/index.html and
> navigate to downloads, products, notebooks, professional notebooks,
> lifebook, c sereies, c1020
> But from the manual it looks like it doesn't have a line-in jack
> either! So I don't think looking at it's driver's inf file will get
> me far.
>
> I'm hoping I can just modify an inf file and reinstall the drivers,
> but I am open to other less user-friendly approaches too.
>
> thanks

I discovered I can make the line-in work by replacing the Conexant AC-Link
audio driver with Intel 82801AB AC'97 drivers
(you have to force it by saying "don't search" and un-checking "show
compatible devices" and then answering yes when it says "windows cannot
verify this driver will work with your hardware..."

But then of course some conexant specific driver features go away including
the "Phone" slider that goes to the modem.

--
Brian K. White -- -- http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD #callahans Satriani