Lenovo T400s Lucid turns sound on though it is turned off, sound key LED doesn't work

[dm]

The T400s has a dedicated sound key with an integrated red LED which is turned on if sound is off. Lucid Lynx ignored the default configuration and activates the sound every time it gets started, that means the LED is off. In KDE I can switch off the sound but the LED stays off. After reboot the sound is activated again. In Karmic everything went fine like in Windows 7. I wish that things worked in Karmic are working in Lucid too.

[dm (jan-rauberg)]

There is a new kernel update to 2.6.32-22.35. Now if I turn off the speakers at GRUB and start Ubuntu the speakers stay off but the red LED that indicates that the speakers are off is now off too. KDE indicates also that the sound was turned off. But after a reboot the sound is activated again unless I turn it off again. So Ubuntu is not able to save the last state and ignores the sound LED. On a T510 everything works quite well, the LED flashes red every time until the sound is activated. This is the behavior like in Windows 7 and in Ubuntu 9.10 on my T400s. Perhaps is there someone who can have closed look into that problem. It's only a littleness but it would make me happy if it would work as before.

[dm (jan-rauberg)]

Ok, here I am again. It seems that this problem isn't interested by someone, but nether the less I will report the actual state. Today I have upgraded to kernel 2.6.32-23 and I hoped that Lucid now works like Karmic, but I got disappointed. The kernel ignores the state of the red sound LED and turns it off immediately after starting the kernel from Grub. In the KDE desktop the sound appears disabled but the system beeps are to be listened instead of waves sounds. This is not the right behavior. If sound is off - everything should be off. I don't want to hear the beeps, I want to hear simply nothing as with Karmic and Windows 7. I don't know what has changed, but with an T510 everything works like a charm.

[dm (jan-rauberg)]

Also in Mercat alpha the sound has the same behavior. You can sound switch off but the beeps remain (red sound LED is off and does not react on pushing the sound button). So you can't boot up really siliently. I wish it would be like in 9.10. A T510 work like a charm.
I'm a bit frustated.
DM

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Hello
Is not clear if you are talking about the beep that usually every pc sound at startup.
This beep is a bios signal and is usefull to diagnose bios failure, it can only disable in the bios settings and in most cases has a separate sound capsule.
Please reply.
Thanks
Fabio

[dm (jan-rauberg)]

YES, I am talking about the system beep at start up.
YES, this beep is a bios signal.
NO, you don't need a special bios setting. The sound button disables it to AND the red light indicates that the notebook is complitely quiet. There are some other beeps, for instance after resuming from suspend to disk. And they are even off if the red light is on. The state of the red light (sound on/off) is stored somewhere in the bios. It keeps its state also after a reboot. If the light was on before shutdown it keeps this state (on) also after powering on again. BUT: this behavior is only valid for Windows. If the state of this red light was off before doing a shutdown it is off also after power on. You can press the sound button after power on during the first BIOS messages so that the light is switched on and you get rid of the BIOS beep. But then comes Linux. If you select Linux in Grub the light gets off almost immediately and you will hear every system beep afterwards. Pressing the sound button in Linux enables/disables only the sound but not enables the system beeps. The annoying thing is not the missing red light but these beeps especially if you are in a silent environment or a train. And: it has worked some times before in Ubuntu 9.10! So, why not now with a recent kernel?

DM

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Ubuntu because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[dm (jan-rauberg)]

I'm a little bit disappointing, that a feature that works on older Ubuntu versions is not available for now. And it seems that there is no interest to solve this.

DM