Make your best effort to turn all these controls up.
Sometimes the push-button volume controls on laptops
operate the system volume directly, and sometimes they
merely send signals to a Windows application that, in turn,
controls the volume. If your laptop??™s volume controls don??™t
seem to be working, the application with which they communicate
may not be installed or running. You can usually
download the media access software from the PC manufacturer??™s
web site.
If hardware volume controls are a dead end, open the Vista??™s Volume Mixer
(sndvol.exe*), and then open the Device menu. If there??™s more than one
device listed, make sure the one you want to use has a checkmark next to it.
Turn up the Device volume control as high as it will go. Also check the subordinate
volume controls to the right, one for each open sound-enabled
application and one for Windows itself, and make sure they??™re all turned up.
Next, go to Control Panel ??? Sound, and choose the Playback tab
(Figure 4-9). If, again, there??™s more than one device listed here, highlight the
one you want to use and click the Set Default button.
* Note that it??™s no longer sndvol32.exe, as it was in earlier versions of Windows.
Sound and Music | 169
Working with
Media
Note that a single hardware device, such as a sound card,
may be responsible for multiple sound devices shown in
Control Panel. For instance, most higher-end audio cards have
both analog (headphone jack) and digital (coax or optical/
SPDIF) outputs, so make sure the one you??™re using is set as the
default, and is marked with the little green checkmark icon.
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