Problems connecting CMT-M373NT to my Laptop

[lanzi]

Hi! First of all I hope i'm in the right segment of the forum here, wasn't really sure where my poblem fits best.

I've tried to connect my Sony Micro Hi-Fi CMT-M373NT NetMD to my Laptop (IBM Thinkpad T40, WinXP all updates installed) via USB, but I run into one problem after the other. I tried to get information on the internet, but so far i've found nothing that helps.

my problems start with not having the install-cd anymore. my 2nd problem is that i want to play mp3's on my laptop (winamp) and get the sound through the hifi-system-speakers.

problem there: it sometimes works without flaws, but most of the time i end up getting messed up acoustic noise with the mp3 i'm playing, sometimes only acoustic noise.

what i tried so far:

- downloaded and installed the newest sonicstage, hoped it would help somehow but it didn't

- downloaded and installed some netmd-drivers (don't know if i got the right ones, was hard enough to find any drivers at all)

- found a zip-file SONY_PCLK_USB_DRIVER.zip (unsure on how to install it, i right-clicked on the .inf file and klicked install, no idea if it worked. since it didn't work after the first restart, i copied it to system32, repeating the procedure from before)

basic question here: how do i install such drivers correctly (.inf + .sys file)

what happens after all this? when i plug in the usb-cable windows XP tries to install drivers, ends up trying to install "Sony USB Comm" (it also tried that without having installed any of the above), but still doesn't seem to find any fitting drivers on my PC (i restarted before that after i had installed the stuff mentioned before), so it aborts the installation. if i try selecting one of the installed drivers manually, windows says there are no fitting drivers.

so basically this hasn't much to do with md, i didn't even get that far^^ so far it would already help much if i could at least use the speakers. I'm out of ideas on how to get it working, maybe one of u can help.

thanks

little update:

- sony usb comm is marked with a yellow (!) unter "other devices"

[sfbp]

It seems (at first quick read of your detailed explanation) that you may be thinking there is a way to play PC to the Sony unit via USB. There is not.

The only thing that the USB drivers will do is to allow you to download (at high speed) songs from your PC onto minidisc.

If that's what you want to do, we can probably help.

If you want to play back in real time without making MD's you have to use line out on the Laptop and Aux (or MD) line in on the HiFi. And you will need a "special" (maybe you already have one, available from many electronics stores, and NOTHING to do with Sony) cable, 3.5mm stereo male plug at both ends.

The extraneous noise may be from the sound card setup on the PC/Laptop. You may need to mute any inputs that could be causing noise, eg microphone.

There's a bit to start with. Perhaps this will give you enough to chew on.

Good luck!

Stephen

[lanzi]

thanks for the answer

the first problem is solved. what i wanted to do is to more or less use the hifi-speakers like desktop speakers.

it works now. the problem with the strange sounds wasn't a problem with the laptop, the speakers or the connection after all. something in the tape-deck wasn't working correctly anymore, looks like it was trying to play a tape that isn't there although the function was set to 'PC', which had some influence on the speakers somehow. i simply taped that part causing the trouble into a position now where it doesn't interfere with the boxes^^. works flawless now.

the second problem still exists. windows still sees it as 'sony usb comm' and says it's not properly installed, having the yellow (!).

[sfbp]

You need to find the right drivers, that's all. I'm not sure what you need; there is a pa_driver.zip package. There's also an older package that had .inf files for my JB980 and some other units. Perhaps that is the one you want. Someone can tell you where to find it; I've temporarily forgotten.

[lanzi]

You need to find the right drivers, that's all.

that's exactly my problem, i think i already should have installed the correct drivers but windows still doesn't seem to recognize my hifi correctly, or at least i failed finding drivers more fitting than the ones i installed so far. what i tried so far:

- sonic stage 4.3 ultimate

- pa-drivers (when i install it it says i already have the drivers)

- SONY_PCLK_USB_DRIVER.zip --> was mentioned in a topic related to this, so i installed it (extracted .zip file, right-clicked inf-file --> install. no install message was shown, no idea if it worked.

- netmd-drivers (found them on a minidisc forum. seemed old but installed them anyway. was the first thing i did)

only other thing i found mentioned were pa-drivers from a japanese 4.4 version (?). when i followed the link i got to a japanese site where i had no idea what to klick on.i don't really know what else to look for

/edit:/ ah got a new one^^ by pressing the netMD-button on my hifi i got windows to try to install net MD. automated driver search didn't bring up anything, so i tried to direct it to the 'personal-driver' path in the sonicstage-folder, the netmd-driver-folder (the one from the minidisc forum) and any other folder under programme/sony. after having no success there i unzipped the pa-driver and sonicstage installfiles in a directory manually and tried it there, same result. it still doesn't seem to find a fitting driver anywhere. now i have 2 units marked with a yellow (!) under 'other devices': Net MD and Sony USB COMM

you mentioned older openmg drivers...any idea which version and where i can get them?

or another idea: maybe it's a language problem? i use german windows, all the files i installed are english. read concerning the japanese 4.4 version that there are problems installing it on anything other than japanese windows, but in this case there would be an error message which i didn't get.

thanks for the help!

[sfbp]

Disconnect all MD devices from USB connection to the computer (you can add back drivers for other units as it suits you later).

Delete all visible devices that are causing you problems (yellow) in Device Manager. Then follow the directions in this post (ignore everything after the first post since it has to do with RH1 and other stuff). This deletes all the devices that you added that you don't need, there may be lots of them. It's the only way to do this.

Uninstall any MD driver packages that are showing in your Add/Remove Programs list.

Reboot Windows.

Now start again with the right drivers which are probably the last ones you found (mine are in a file called "OpenMG_Jukebox_NetMD_Drivers.zip"). I recently did this for the JB980 which I strongly suspect has the same set of drivers as you. Note that Sonic Stage should not recognise the device until you press that magic "NetMD" button, in fact the USB system should not even SEE the MD system.

At this point you probably will get connected.

If none of this works, you need to look carefully for a line in one of the .inf files in one of the packages you have installed that says:

ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0xxx ; yyyyyyyyyyy

Where xxx is some arbitrary 3-digit numeric string (for MDS-JB980 it happens to be "080") and yyyyyyyyyy is the name of your device (note that some of the bookshelf devices can have multiple names). It doesn't matter, it's a comment anyway. Also further down there will be a line in the [sony] section of the inf file which looks something like

%NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0xxx

(xxx is same string as above).

If you can figure out xxx you can even try it. You (almost) definitely need the file NETMDUSB.INF which will tell the installer what to do, and if you found it this should be the name of the file you found in the description above.

Hope this helps!

Stephen

PS it's *just* possible that http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=PCVMXS20&upd_id=213&os_id=7 contains the right driver, if nothing above works. Only a guess, don't shoot me.....