Windows 7: Left channel mutes at random

Strange issue with windows 7

When I play a video in WMP its severely muffled



If I edit the video in Sony Vegas its at full volume. Before you even ask.... YES, the volume for both speaker and WMP12 is at max.

I also have this rather odd issue of my left channel on my headphones randomly muting then coming back during use.

This left channel issue was occuring on my 680i onboard so I went out and bought a brand new XFI extreme audio and guess what it randomly mutes the left channel on that one too.

Just to be sure it wasn't my headset I also bought a brand new pair of logitech clearchat's at the time I purchased my XFI card 2 days ago. Left channel goes out on those too, WTH... I used to really love windows 7, but over the last two weeks I have had the craziest audio problems.

I am even considering going back to Vista if I can't fix this muffled audio in WMP eventhough it is at full on the slider and the speaker icon in taskbar.

Hi and welcome. I will try and help you on your sound problem.
Have you tried this?
Open Windows 7 Control Panel
Select System Icon
Select in upper left column Device Manager.
Go down to Sound and Video from the list and open the list by clicking the little arrow on the left of the words.

Do you see your sound card?
Do you see any large exclamation points next to anything?
At this point if you right mouse click on your sound card you can select uninstall.

After this is done you want to shutdown and restart your computer to see if Windows 7 sees your sound card again and installs the drivers.
If you have a CD for your sound card you can install Windows 7 drivers from that but I think if you are hooked up to the internet let Windows 7 find the best driver for you.

At this point we will see what happens then try somehting else.

This issue was solved by

1). Exchanging my Logitech Clearchat Premium Stereo PC Headset for a Logitech Comfort "USB" digital headset and installing shark007 x64 components/Windows 7 codecs.

No more dropouts and I get to get all the money back wasted on that XFI Extreme Audio which I bought for gaming, but as it turns out has very limited EAX.

If I plug in a analogue headset the problem exists
When I plug in a USB digital no sound card req. headset the problem magically goes away. USB must be designed around windows 7, because until two days ago I never even heard of USB audio headsets.

I read somewhere that they changed the way the audio is filtered in vista vs windows 7. I'd say Windows 7 is designed around USB headsets judging by my onboard sound and a new XFI extreme audio card both exhibiting the same problems.

It is alway nice to hear the problem is solved.
Great job!