[ltp] t520 speakers seem weak

[Richard Neill]

>       My lovely, top-of-the-line thinkpad t520 has finally arrived. I
> installed ubuntu and fired it up and... wow, those speakers are quiet.
> Am I doing something wrong here?  My t43p didn't have the loudest
> speakers in the world, but I could at least hear stuff
> reasonably. This one is barely audible.

There are at least 3 ways to make a system inaudible, because all the 
volume controls are in "series".

Assuming the speakers themselves work ok, try
    cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp
which ought to make a very loud noise.
A more gentle version is to use the program "speaker-test".

After this, check:

   - the BIOS/hardware volume controls (the physical buttons)
   - the state of ALSA (alsamixergui)
   - the state of pulseaudio (pavucontrol)
   - the in app volume control (eg VLC).
   - the file you are playing.


HTH,

Richard