Why the Stereo Mix is disabled on Lenovo Thinkpads & How to enable it?

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Hi,

As evidenced in previous threads here and around the internet, recording via stereo mix has been removed from most new Lenovo Thinkpads, at present the x6x/t6x series, that i am aware of.

Threads have been started, users have tried to take the matter into their own hands trying to hack the drivers, and Lenovo has not responded at all, People have tried to contact tech support about the matter & they are equally clueless.

This feature was re-enabled in subsequent drivers with Dell & the Sigmatel 92xx drivers, but I don't know how to enable the Stereo Mix on my Lenovo Thinkpad.

An easy solution for some is an additional soundcard, which i think is ridiculous considering the amount of money spent on these machines, but for some machines that isn't even a viable solution, the pcmcia controller on some t6x & x6x models are incompatible with popular pcmcia soundcards and users have reported that usb solutions don't work either.

I've also tried software solutions like Virtual Audio Cable & Total Recorder and they are not acceptable solutions for me, simply because they don't work.


Affected configurations

Any of the following Lenovo ThinkPad systems running on Microsoft Windows Vista or Microsoft Windows XP with the following configurations are affected:
ThinkPad R61, R61i
ThinkPad T61, T61p
ThinkPad X61, X61s, X61 tablet
ThinkPad X200
ThinkPad X300, X301
ThinkPad R400, R500
ThinkPad T400, T500
ThinkPad W500

Symptom #1: There is no Stereo Mix function in the Recording tab under Sound settings in current ThinkPads. (This function existed in some previous ThinkPads.)

Symptom #2: There is no Microphone option in the Levels tab under Sound settings, Speakers Properties in current ThinkPads. (This function existed in some previous ThinkPads.)

Official reply from Lenovo support:

Originally Posted by Lenovo

Symptoms #1 and #2 were caused by a design change agreement between Microsoft and the audio chip hardware supplier. The new change drops the support of mixed-stereo function and direct playback of microphone. The change in design calls to have these function implemented in application level in future. The goal of this design change is to begin standardizing the audio industry. The design change affected all PC vendors worldwide. In the future, Microsoft and audio vendors expect individual applications developers pick up these functions.

If Lenovo is not going to release drivers for you, you can find out what sound card is used on your computer and try drivers from other vendors that use the same sound card.

You can find more solutions in the following thread:
Missing sound recording option "Stereo Mix" / "Record What you hear" / "Waveout mix"

Or you can use software that doesn't need Stereo Mix for recording:
Audio/video recording software that allows to record sound without WaveOut/Stereo Mix