Very weak sound from ibm t42 thinkpad - internal and exteranl speakers

There are two ways to set the sound on an IBM thinkpad, hardware and software.
Hardware sound can be set via the speaker buttons below the screen. There should be three buttons: Mute, Volume Down, and Volume Up.
Software sound can be set in windows through the speaker icon on the bottom right of the screen. Click on the icon, and drag the slider up or down to change the volume.
If you don't have the correct drivers installed, these two settings are separate (e.g. It is possible to have the hardware volume down low, and the software volume set really high, and still have music playing relatively quietly). I would suggest turning both of them up and see if the sound gets louder.