Latitude E5570 sound issue

nickjones5582 · 2017-03-07T13:37:22.000Z

So I’ve got a very strange sound issue with an E5570. Basically docking stations kill external speakers.

The laptop is used in a docking station. When it’s not plugged into the dock if you plug in speakers to the aux jack the speakers are detected and work fine. The docking station has external speakers hooked up to it via the aux jack. when I insert the laptop into the dock the external sperakers are not detected and the laptop defaults to the built in speakers. If I plug the speakers into the laptop’s aux jack while docked the Dell Audio program will pop-up the window asking what I want to do with the speakers (headphones? speakers?) and I select speakers but it still won’t show them in the systray sound icon and defaults sound to the built in speakers. Undocking it then instantly gets the audio output switched to the external speakers.

Drivers are updated, bios is updated, I’m at a loss as to what could kill external speakers when it’s docked.

trelstadtech · 2017-03-07T14:02:20.000Z

Are you hot docking? If so, have you tried it with a cold dock?

nickjones5582 · 2017-03-07T16:39:37.000Z

It doesn’t matter if the pc is on or off when docked.

Also it is a K07A docking station, the kind that you insert the laptop into.

essjae · 2017-03-07T21:12:47.000Z

So, it’s not “killing” speakers (breaking them), but you just can’t use them.

What’s the OS?

IIRC, there is an option to un-hide disabled devices, and to pick which device is the default.

On my dock, the dock speakers are shown as “headphone”

nickjones5582 · 2017-03-08T11:48:03.000Z

Thanks. It’s windows 7 32 bit.

The strange thing is when it’s docked it doesn’t show the external speakers/headphones. It’s as if the aux jack on the dock and in the laptop are being disabled when it’s plugged into the dock.

nickjones5582 · 2017-03-08T12:08:46.000Z

I updated the sound driver again this time with the system docked and aux jack connected to the docks sound port. fixed.

CrashFF · 2017-03-10T19:13:56.000Z

My guess is that the dock has a different sound chip in it than the laptop. When you use the dock, it disconnects internal part and uses its own instead. With no drivers for the dock hardware, the laptop says there is no sound device installed until you undock the laptop.