By the way, these undocumented properties have line descriptions in "hdaudio.inf".
They were force enabled, alright, but still no sound. Then I found an IDT driver from HP for later laptop models (circa 2015 instead of 2010), but that installer failed, claiming no support for my device. Being the shifty cowboy that I am, I tried adding my Hardware ID to the installer's INF file and crossing my fingers. The installer seemed to run longer, but ultimately failed with the same message. No luck.
I finally decided to boot up Ubuntu as a cross-reference, having strong feelings that the Linux driver would work just fine. Confirmed; good ol' Alsamixer.
Here's the strange part: I booted back into Windows, miserably defeated after hours wasted. The High Definition Audio driver now magically works. Completely; no issues whatsoever*. Even detects Headphone connection. Theories:
1. The 2010 IDT uninstaller left crap around that interfered with drivers installed after it. The 2015 installer cleaned this junk up. 2. Windows/the driver corrupted some kind of onboard memory of the IDT chip, and Linux rewrote it correctly. (Unlikely, but I like to pretend this one is true because it makes for a good story.)
Morals: Laptops are expensive and dumb. Save your money for less specialized parts to leverage strength in numbers. Googling for unpublished Windows internal features is a good way to waste time. Hardware is useless without a software driver, and drivers are usually awful. Civilization III runs very poorly in Wine. My laptop speakers can play much louder now.
"Cool story, bro."
*Uh oh, an asterisk. My laptop speakers make a popping sound when I Sleep the computer. Civilization III's background music was choppy on my first run; don't know what that was about.
Congratulations on your poor experience with an old Windows laptop. Clearly everyone has your needs, and therefore should stick to buying desktop computers with parts made in the last 5 years.
I cannot trust HP, Sony, or Lenovo to really produce something that isn't either defective by design, or bundled with crapware.
I have an Asus laptop from 2009, it's still functional, but it's now no longer in use.
My most recent laptop purchase is from 2015, a MacBook Pro with Retina screen, 15" with 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. The physical dimensions of the screen are 2880 by 1800, but I use the scaled resolution of 1920 by 1200.
It's a solid performer, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else, portable PC wise. It also runs macOS, which I see would put me off running that Civilization III game you're yammering on about. Technically, it could run Windows, and is still supported with vendor drivers even today, but I don't feel the need to do so.
I can't bring myself to support Apple in any fashion, given their "culture" that I've had the displeasure of experiencing (the mystery is tantalizing). Their hardware tends to be solidly built, so at least there's that.
Retina screen + Safari scrolling = best browsing experience I've ever had; so smooth; nothing that non-Apple software couldn't achieve though, because software.
Aw, no Civ3? It's the best because non-wasteful, non-3D graphics (it's 2D), and it adds just enough extra layers of complexity over Civ2. Civ4 overdoes it. That Baba Yetu, though.
There is Civ3 for Mac, and sounds like it isn't a bad port, either. :D
That's my machine. Stripped of useless crapware and stupid beats audio drivers. Everything I do comes from here. Not exactly the perfect laptop (far from it), but it gets the job done.
I have a MacBook retina for work and I've been happy with it. It boots Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu, all of which I need at various points, though I get a lot done with VMs.
At home I often use a Chromebook, with Crouton in dev mode it becomes a general purpose Linux laptop (I've wiped it and just run Arch Linux on it before but couldn't keep the drivers working), and I like the keyboard (it's a first gen HP), though I often just use it as a terminal to work on my desktop.
I've had and loved ThinkPads in the past, usually with Linux instead of the crap-laden Windows installs they usually come with.