System sounds are not loud enough

Thanks but that is one of the first things I tried. I've also disabled auto volume reduction. Guess I just have to keep my speakers up a little louder than I really like to so I can hear the system sounds.

Please tell me what auto volume reduction is - I'm not aware of it. In the meantime, I'll try to remember what I did to fix my volume problem. It may not be the same problem you have - but I'll do my best to remember. Just check back here periodically. My memory isn't what it used to be.

Sympatiize with the memory thing....too true. I appreciate whatever you can recall, I thought from the thread that you never got a proper answer here and hoped you found one somewhere else or figured a solution on your own.

Some posts suggested that the win 7 auto sound leveler was coming on sporadically and limiting the volume. Frankly, I think if it were the case windows update probably corrected it by now. But just to be sure I set it to "do nothing" and left it that way. Here's how: right click on the speaker icon on the taskbar; left click on sounds; left click on communications. You will see that it defaults to reduce volume by 80% when you "are using your PC to place or receive phone calls." I don't do that with this PC but, since that is the case, saw no harm in turning it off by checking "do nothing". It had no effect on my low system volume but I left it set that way.

I really don't remember if I got an solution from the 'Web' or I found one on my own. In any case, I don't have the problem anymore. Have you tried to update your sound driver from the manufacturer? If not, let me know and I'll walk you through the "whole" process (or "correct" process).

Thanks for your kind offer, Nisko---While I am new to win 7, I have been figuring out problems with computers, believe it or not, since before windows 3.1! (DOS wasn't so bad, actually). So I made sure to have all the latest drivers etc for my system when I installed win 7 on a second hard drive.

So guess I will google the low system sound volume from time to time and see if it gets attention on the web. Of course, if you have a brainstorm I will stay subscribed to this thread. Thanks for trying to help.

It could be that your sound driver didn't install correctly. Delete the sound driver. Then, right click the top line ans Scan for Hardware changes. This will reinstall your sound driver.

Thanks Jacee---My problem was low sound only on the win 7 system sounds (i.e. critical stop, dings, error, start up/shut down wav etc). Luckily my sounds for all other uses was fine, dvd, cd, games, audio on sites, etc. All was fine for all audio file formats except the win 7 system sounds. Others have complained of the same problem.

After essentially giving up and deciding to just live with lower volume on the system sounds, I noticed that after a couple of updates to win 7 and reboots that the system sounds were pretty close in volume to all other audio. Hmm......That should not have worked!!

Been around PC's since my first home PC (a whopping Pentium 1 at 60hz). Blazing fast compared to the 286 I had at work.

Anyway I hate it when things don't work as they should, and also don't like problems that go away without me ever finding out what caused them.

One possibility that I have no way of checking: I installed ATI Catalyst Control Center on the drive that has win 7. I have HDMI audio as an option but use my SB Audigy speakers instead. Maybe the CCC install corrected something that was conflicting between the HDMI and Audigy audio. Don't know. Any thoughts?

Anyway, thanks for reading this. :)