I just found out about a way to significantly increase the quality and output from the rather lackluster speakers on my Thinkpad W520. The same should hold true for other similar models such as the T420. In fact I also used the instructions to upgrade a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (1st gen) so they probably can be used with any system. The software is available at this forum post at notebookreview.com: Dolby Home Theater for your ThinkPad!
The post is a little bit old but everything works perfectly on my Windows 8.1 systems.
The trick to getting this to work is the following:
First go into Device Manager -> Sound, Video, and Game Controllers and if you have a Conexant sound card you need need to remove/uninstall the device. When you do so there will be a checkbox option to remove the drivers which should be checked.
Next, the computer needs to boot up into a special mode to allow the installation of unsigned drivers. To do this, press the Win key + C to open the Charms bar and choose Settings. Then at the very bottom choose Change PC Settings. From there choose Update and Recovery -> Recovery -> Advanced Startup.
The machine will reboot and show a list of advanced startup options. Number 7 in the list is the option to allow the installation of unsigned drivers. Press 7 and boot.
Now in File Explorer go to the drivers that were downloaded from above and run DTPC.msi. Select the checkboxes to install drivers and install content assets and make sure the DHT(release) driver, which is the default, is selected.
Upon installation a window will come up with a red warning, asking to install the unsigned drivers. Select the option to install and let it finish.
Reboot the computer and now there should be a Dolby folder under Start Menu -> Programs. Open Dolby Tuning and Profile Creator and select the 1. Import tab at the top. To the right of ALL TUNING + PROFILES click the Import button, then navigate to the folder where the above driver is downloaded and select the file HearstAllSettings.inx to import it. (Note that his instructions on the above page say to install his own profiles but I found that the HearstAllSettings profiles were much better.)
Now you should right-click on the speaker icon in your system tray (I choose to always show the speaker icon in the system tray customization settings. Otherwise you can get to it via Control Panel -> Sound. For the Playback device select Properties -> Advanced tab and in the drop down list select 24 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Quality).
Go back to the Sound devices window and choose the Recording tab and go into Properties -> Advanced for the microphone. Select 2 channel, 24 bit 96000 Hz (Studio Quality).
You are now set up to have awesome sound on your laptop. In the Profile Creator app you can select tab 5. Profiles and test the different profiles out. I like P4 General EQ the best.
My newer Thinkpad X1 Carbon already came with Dolby Home Theater, however I chose to uninstall it and install the version above which includes the profile creator and more powerful features. On that system, which did not have the Conexant sound card, I did not need to uninstall/remove the sound device. I still had to boot into the special startup mode to allow the installation of unsigned drivers, and basically followed all the same steps above to install it (including installing the driver).
I cannot believe how much better the sound now is from the tiny laptop speakers on both my main laptops. Its seriously amazing. I’m especially loving listening to ambient drone music (stuff like Steve Roach, Biosphere, etc.) through the speakers which now have this expansive effect.
This is making me think how cool it would be to have little satellite speakers set up at various points around my apartment that I could control.
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