Low Speaker Volume

Hello, I hope you are doing well.

I am not sure where to post this, as it is probably not completely a hardware issue or an operating system issue. I cannot seem to pin down what the problem is, and am hoping others can help. I have contacted Dell's official technical support, but they were of no help whatsoever, unfortunately.

My girlfriend has a Dell Vostro 1520 laptop; it came running Windows Vista Business, but she has upgraded to Windows 7 Professional, yet the problem persists. Basically, most sound is very, very low. This includes videos that are playing (e.g. sites such as Hulu and YouTube, on Windows Media Player, on VLC Media Player), music that is playing (e.g. music-streaming sites, on iTunes, on Winamp), and every single form of media that has audio. For Web sites, I have tested this problem on Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari, and the problem exists in all browsers.

The only time she notices that sounds are loud is when she plays Valve's Counter-Strike: Source, a computer game. Because of this, she doesn't think it's a speaker issue.

I personally have a Dell Vostro 1500 without any problems, and the same sites that we go to is much, much lower in volume when it's coming from her computer. Of course, I have checked her basic sound settings to make sure that the volume is set at the highest level. Any thoughts regarding this problem?

Thank you very much!
Victor

Hi there.

First why did she upgrade to win7? The second thing is check the drivers.

Second, check the volume, not just the master volume but the "wave" volume as well, that may very well be the problem.

If this doesn't help it may be some win7 problem or incompatibilities.

Then again it may be DirectX, check it in the control panel.

But is counterstrike always loud, or only sometimes?


JohnDowe.

Thanks for replying, John.

My girlfriend upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 because she didn't like Vista very much, though she didn't actually "upgrade" but did a clean installation of Windows 7 (sorry for using the wrong terminology).

I have helped her install all the necessary drivers, and this computer has been this way since she first got it from Dell (when it was still Vista).

I have checked every part of volume that I can think of, and there does not seem to be any incompatibilities.

Counter-Strike has the ability of being very loud, while other programs cannot get half as loud as Counter-Strike can.

Thanks,
Vic