really low sound volume, realtek hd audio

[ZippyDan]

Background: Working on a friend's computer so I don't know all history. Sound was working fine before playing at normal volumes: suddenly started playing really low at max volume. I can verify that it used to be fine before and now plays really low, but I don't know for sure what happened in between.

Symptom: Sound is barely audible. Seems to only play out of left speaker (2-channel speakers.)

Details: Using powered logitech speakers. Plugged into (lime) green output on rear of computer. Motherboard is MSI P6N SLI with a Realtek HD Audio chipset. Running Windows XP Pro w/ SP3. Running latest MSI drivers from February 2009.

Troubleshooting: Tested using headphones, same result. Tested speakers on other system: work fine. Verified sound levels in: speaker volume knob, windows voume control (advanced controls as well), control panel -> sounds and audio devices, realtek hd audio manager (even discovered secret volume controls for each physical output - no effect.) Installed latest MSI drivers. Ran Spybot, AVG, Windows Defender scans (I have found a persistent trojan that I can't kill yet.) Uninstalled all third party sound codecs I could find. Installed CCCP.

Partial Solution: Plugged speakers into rear blue output (normally used for rear channel speakers I believe) and using the Realtek HD Audio Manager set it to output front channel sound via this output. Everything works fine now. I hear sound at normal levels out of both speakers.

Help: I hate to leave a problem unsolved. Using the blue output is a hack as far as I'm concerned. I need ideas as to why the normal green Line Out is not working...

 

[BlackthornePCs]

Hi ZippyDan,
It seems that you are using different channel settings. Goto "Advanced? button in the ?Speakers? section of the audio control panel. It is most likely that the system has been configured for 5.1 operations and not 2 channel. The use of headphones or 2-channel desktop speakers is not giving the center channel the proper protocol to play the sounds, hence the lack of clarity. I hope this helps. Good luck

 

[ZippyDan]

sorry I had already thought of that too. both windows sound control and realtek control are set to 2 channel sound

 

[Modelworks]

Unfortunately the problem you describe is pretty common. The electronics on the onboard sound can fail and the result is either the jack quits working, distorts, or has low volume. I have also seen this with line in jacks, where the jack works but the input is distorted or low volume. Really nothing you can do but re-assign the jack as you already have.

 

[ZippyDan]

thats what i feared. i guess i wont know for sure until i do a complete reinstall but i dont see that happening

i also cleared the virus using Avast's boot scan... no change