sound VERY low

I just did a clean install of Win7 64-bit, and am running into a problem I've had on another machine (that also didn't get solved). It seems to be a very common problem, and I've tried all the suggestions I've found online. Nothing works.

The problem is that it seems the "WAV" (or what used to be this in XP) level is extremely low. If I click on the speaker in the system tray, the green "level" only goes up about 10%. The volume is cranked to 100% in every level in the mixer.

Things I have tried to resolve this:
- set the communications to "do nothing"
- disabled all input devices (mic, line in, etc)
- disabled exclusive mode

None of these have worked. I only have a pair of (powered) speakers installed, and am using the standard green line-out on the motherboard (Gigabyte with Realtek audio). I also have a Sound Blaster Audigy/2, and the problem is the same with the main output on that card.

The weird thing is, if I right-click on "Test" of the "Speakers" section in the Playback area of audio properties, the level is correct. It's like the WAV slider (in XP's audio properties) is down to 10% or so, but I can't find any way to increase it.

This is extremely frustrating. Hopefully somebody can shed some light on this for me.

I tried the mixer as the default recording device, but that didn't change it.

I have now also tried disabling the on-board and only using the SB, but it still does the same thing.

I'll try pulling the SB completely and going with the on-board with the most updated drivers, and see if that does anything.

The strange thing is, right after instaling Windows, it worked fine. Then "something" (I haven't figured out what) changed or updated after the first boot, and it hasn't worked since that point. I've tried uninstalling every Windows update, and backing out every driver update, but it didn't make any difference.

I pulled the SB completely and updated all drivers, and this still has the same issue.

When in "test" mode (Speakers, properties), it has all the correct levels. IE: when playing the dee-doo-doo to the left speaker, then dee-doo-doo to the right speaker (I apologize for the lack of technical description to the sound; hopefully you know the spot I'm talking about). But as soon as I exit out of the properties window and click on the volume (in the system tray) to open the slider (which is at maximum), the little windows "chime" sound that it makes has the green bar only go up about 10%.

In XP, there was a way to have control over all the "options" of the sound properties. CD-AUDIO had one setting, WAV had another. All these Windows "sounds" (and many games) used the WAV level to output sounds. If there was a way to set this, I'm confident it would correct the problem.

If not, any other ideas would be appreciated. This seems like a pretty widespread bug, and frustrates a lot of users.

"...this is not a widespread problem..."

Typing "windows 7 volume low" in Google nets 450 million hits. Even if only 10% of them are valid, I'd call that pretty widespread. No offence, but Dell machines are intended for 'end users', and will almost never have custom components installed in them, so once Dell sets the sound drivers, they're never again touched by the user and never have to worry about compatibility problems.

I'll try what you suggested. If I'm still stuck, I'll reinstall it again and check as I go along to see where it breaks.