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Volume turns itself down automatically

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Hi,
I’m running XP Pro SP2 and at least once a day, sometimes more, the sound will turn itself down. I can slide the volume control slider up to max and it will immediately slide back down on its own. I have to reboot to be able to gain control of the volume again (for a few hours until it starts back up).

This computer is not networked, is behind a firewall, has virus protection, and is checked for spyware regularly via several different “cleaner” programs. I bought a new sound card this weekend thinking that would fix it, unloaded all sound drivers, installed the new driver for the new card. Still has the same problem of the volume turning itself down.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-e

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In reply to Volume turns itself down automatically

If you’re sure your system is clean in terms of viruses or malware and you’ve swapped out the card and the driver, unless I’m missing something I would think the problem lies with the motherboard. You can reset your sound settings to their default values and try again as another option but I’m not aware of any setting (unless it lies in the registry) to turn volume down without user intervention. I think the problem is with the motherboard. If you can swap the cards in another PC and test them you could further isolate the problem to the motherboard. Hope this helps.

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Sounds like you need more power, turning the volume up increase the amount of power your sound card requires (that’s just how volume works).
Up grading your power supply will help, you can test this before you upgrade the power supply. open up your box and run your video and sound cards of a separate power supply, if it’s all runs sweet then buy a new power supply.

Play with your PCs performance settings and see if adjusting them help with your sound.

Application you are running can also control sound maybe you are running an mp3 or movie file that when it runs executes code to turn your sound down also some movie files that don’t have sound, auto turn the sound to nothing.

Power seems to be an issue, yet still weird behaviour of volume control

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I am running a Creative Xmod X-Fi USB soundcard on a Toshiba Portege M400 connected to a power-supplied USB hub (5V, 2A). Sometimes the volume in Windows XP turns itself down just as described in previous posts. Just as being connected to zero by a spring, it slides down by itself no matter how much you try to drag it up. As NZ_Justice suggested, beefing up the power supply seems to help. Indeed, after unplugging all other USB devices, the volume slider was adjustable again. However, this lasted only for a few seconds before it automatically slid back to zero again. The funny phenomenon is the following, though: Opening the ‘Sounds and Audio Devices’ dialog from ‘Control Panel’ and setting the ‘Sound playback’ on the ‘Audio’ tab to Sigmatel Audio (the build-in audio card of the M400) and pressing the ‘Apply’-button, the slider of the volume control for the SigmaTel Audio slides automatically to zero while the (master) volume slider in the Speaker volume dialog for the Creative Xmod now is adjustable again. It’s a bit mind-boggling because theoretically the audio should now be produced by the SigmaTel audio card. Yet, the music nicely comes through the Xmod, although it has not been chosen as the default audio device. This phenomenon can be be inverted as well (switching SigmaTel for Xmod as the default audio device). To make a long story short: Maybe sufficient power is a necessary condition for running the audio device. But there seems to be some unexplicable other problem, perhaps more Windows XP- or audio-(driver-)handling related.

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In reply to Power seems to be an issue, yet still weird behaviour of volume control

I’m having the same problem, and I actually tried (stupidly) installing Creative Audigy software the other day. I’m running windows ME, and the volume and sound ran fine before, and power isn’t the problem. It is plenty loud while it is turned up, but it is the automatic turning down that is the problem. No hands; slider drops to zero. It is the volume control, the wave balance stays where you put it.

Anyway, I uninstalled the software, since it wouldn’t work (was going for DVD playing software that came with it), I uninstalled everything. On my other computer that actually has the Creative Audigy card, there is a volume “leveling” adjustment, that will inch down the volume if it judges the music to be clipping, or too loud, or whatever its criterion is.

Anyway, I think that the Creative uninstall has left some chunk of program that is turning the volume down, that didn’t uninstall properly. I’ve deleted all things Creative I can find in the program files, and registry, to no avail. This is the only similar post that I’ve found thusfar, and I hope some genius can come up with the solution, short of drastic measures.

My Drivers were on-board ESS 1869 drivers, on an old Compaq 5151, whose only original parts are the case and motherboard. It’s my #2, but I’d sure like to get it going again.

James

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Same problem, I have checked with latest Kaspersky and Uniblu spyware checker and done registry repair, all without benefit.
Is there any solution other than a wretched reload of windows?
Tony

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I am experiencing the same problem with my volume control. I am using an HP Pavilion ze5270 and have had this problem since buying it. I have a Conexant AMC sound card but I do not believe the problem lies there. The volume control slider is controllable via the mouse but as soon as you “let go” of it, it slides itself to zero. None of the other controls (wave, sw synth, etc.) exhibit the same problem.

volume control

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our volume did the same… the slider would slide back down after you had put it up… not much fun when trying to watch you tube. Anyway, after days of searching and messing about we finally fixed it!! There had been a sound ‘widget’ added on to some update either to Real Player or Mozilla and this was the problem. We went into control panel, add/remove programs and looked at recently added programs and sure enough there was the ‘sound’ add on. We removed this and the problem has gone!! Hope this works for you.

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I found that replacing

C:\WINDOWS\system32\XAudio2_0.dll
and all x3daudio1*.dll

with a backup copy did the trick.

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By coincidence, I also changed the batteries of my Genius Multimedia Mouse yesterday.

The volume control (sitting on the thumb-side of the mouse) was stuck, which I didn’t realize before.

So, the culprit in my case wasn’t the dll but the mouse volume control.

Now my volume meter is as responsive as before. I only screwed up my sound drivers 🙂

fixed

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wireless mice with volume control.
replace your battery

unplug keyboard then plug it back in

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Unplugging the keyboard then plugging it back in fixed it here.

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