Low volume from sound card

I have a new computer and I'm having sound problems. I'm at work during the week from 8:00AM to 6:00 or 7:00PM so I have a hard time trying to talk to the dealer where I bought my computer and the store is closed on the weekends, but maybe someone here can help. I'm getting low volume from my speakers when playing any music or voices but have normal sound like say when Windows theme (XP Pro) starts after rebooting and email notification sounds. I've clicked on the Windows volume control and all the sliders are full up and nothing is muted. I'm using powered speakers and I've also tried the new small speakers that came with the computer but with the same results. My sound card or chip seems to be a SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC or at least that what's Belarc Advisor program says. If I turn Windows Volume way up and the volume control on my powered speakers way up I can hear music but at at a very low volume. I'm still installing programs on my computer but I first noticed the volume issue when I tried to run Windows Narrator and I could barely hear it.

On the back of the computer there is a green jack (supposed to be speaker), a blue jack (line in), a pink jack (mic) plus an orange, black, and digital jack which I don't know what there for. I'm plugged into the green speaker jack, any ideas?

 

Pete I went through all of my media players and made sure the volume was turned way up.

1. Windows Media player - Volume is decent but volume fluctuates from loud to soft with some distortion.

2. iTunes - Same as above

3. PowerDvd - Volume is very low.

4. Narrator - Volume is very low

I went to Control Panel-Sounds-Volume-Speakers and made sure the volume was set high and that it was set to Desktop Stereo Speakers ( I even tried different settings). My speaker system is a powered sub with satellites that just feed one stereo cable to the input jack on the computer. I tried a pair of small stereo speakers that came with the computer and get the same results as my bigger system but with lower volume because of the smaller size.

Now when I go back to my old computer and try the speakers the sound is extremely loud at 1/2 setting, it about blows you out of the room. Any more ideas?

 

When the sound plays, the current program should be runnning in the "foreground" (the current Window), look at the top left-hand corner, it will show the program that is running the sound/audio output. Say it is Windows Media Player, you may need to increase the volume in that program.

Matt
Edit: I was at looking at an old post. Maybe something here can help

 

Okay thanks for trying I suppose I just better contact my dealer tomorrow.

 

URL = You are lost
Yes I was a little Had myself confused

I agree about the multichannel setup. Simple sounds may be outputting in 2 channel. The media players outputting in 4 or 6 channels.

For my system(s), the configuration is in Control Panel -> Sound Effects Manager -> Speaker Configuration tab. It shows you where and how to connect the speakers for the different channels.

Matt

 

What had me confused was that I had this thread open twice and was replying in one of them. The replies go down reading in the forum and up when replying. Plus, I had left them open for a few hours and was about to make my way to bed. I thought there had been a whole new series of replies
Old post, I meant old version of this thread

Matt

 

Just thought I would post back for the people who tried to help me. I took it back to my dealer and one of their tech's spent a couple of hours trying to correct the problem before eventually calling Intel tech support. The problem was that the wrong drivers were originally installed and my sound card or chip was stuck in 5.1 mode. Had I had a 5.1 speaker setup it would have worked even though the wrong drivers were installed, although I would have never been able to use in a two channel setup. I guess that particular Intel MB just came out, if that's any excuse for installing the wrong drivers.

Anyway it works fine now, thanks!