Volume not loud enough on PC speakers - what am I missing?
 

The sound card that came in my Dell is a "Soundmax Digital Audio." I've turned up the volume to max on everything and only then does it play at a reasonable level. Slightly loud isn't an option. Is there something I'm missing?

I went to the XP control panel and maxed it out there. The speakers (Altec Lansing) have a volume knob and it's maxed out... any suggestions?

Do the speakers plug into the wall? If not, you need powered speakers.

Dave

Yes, they're powered and plugged in.

Have you double checked to make sure they are actually plugged into the right jack? Speaker jack is usually light green these days. Do you have another set of speakers you can test with?

Dave

Yep... green plug in the green jack. I just have this set of speakers. They came with the 'puter. The sound quality is fine for my needs, but I just want it a bit louder sometimes.

I'm outta ideas. They should be plenty loud. Hope you can solve the problem.

Dave

To help isolate whether it's a computer/soundcard issue or a speaker issue, you could try plugging the speakers into an ipod, walkman, etc. and see if you get better output, or about the same.

Control Panel -> Sound & Audio Devices -> Advaced button on volume tab -> Make sure all the sliders are up all the way.

My guess is that you need better speakers.

Which Altec Lansing speakers? I may know the answer here.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1153406544.jpg

Have you tried other speakers?

Sorry, I don't know those speakers.

our computer does that too. sometimes they are too quiet and sometimes they are fine. I don't think it is the computer I think it is Windows software or the drivers.

It's plenty loud with the iPod. I'll see if there's an newer driver for the card.

Did you follow my instructions?

Problem is you installed a Dell instead of a Mac. ;)

Those SoundMax cards (actually just a few chips on the mobo) are crap; they have really screwy settings. If there's a "3D" sound setting(s) that you can find in the volume control panel you should set it to 0.

I know this only because I have the same card in my crap Dell that I use for Linux. Unfortunately ALSA under Linux provides greater flexibility than you may have under Winblows.

One more thing...there was a driver update for these things about 2 years ago. It resolved a "plays way too damn fast" problem, where everything coming out of the speakers sounded like the Chipmunks at 3/4 speed.

Yep... that was the first thing I tried.

You may need to adjust the level of the input as well as the overall volume. See if you have a volume control for Wave/DirectSource, Line In, or CD. Those may be down low even though the Output volume is up.

I downloaded a new driver from Dell. It's all fixed now. And I know it's fixed because my wife just came in and asked me to turn it down. That never happened before! :cool: