[brickrd]

Just started recently: At seemingly random intervals, the audio levels for certain programs will dip to an extremely low level. I just experienced it with VLC player and had to go into the volume mixer. The bar was lowered to about 10% of all the other volume levels.

It also happens to the system beep. In my mIRC chat client I use system beeps as notifications that someone has mentioned me or sent me a message. I can't figure out a way to fix this. "System sounds" is still at full volume in the mixer, but I get very low, muffled volume levels for my beeps. Moving the slider up and down in the mixer sometimes produces beeps of a more appropriate volume, but it never persists and I always end up with the same old quiet beeps.

This may seem like a trivial thing, but as I said, I use system beeps to alert me, and it's started affecting other programs like VLC as well. Restarting my machine solves the problem, but that is an extremely inconvenient "fix." Anyone have an idea of what could be causing this?

 

[jcgriff2]

Make sure audio drivers are updated - go directly to audio device manufacturer's support site.

Check audio device Control Panel, which should be listed in Windows Control Panel.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`

 

[TheGift73]

Are you sound drivers up to date?
This may sound like a stupid question, but are you sure that you speaker wires are attached and working fine? If you don't have these and only have the sound coming through your monitor, then it may well be your drivers.
When you right click on your Speaker icon next to the clock, and select 'Sounds', is there anything amiss there? Check under all 4 tabs.

 

[brickrd]

Are you sound drivers up to date?
This may sound like a stupid question, but are you sure that you speaker wires are attached and working fine? If you don't have these and only have the sound coming through your monitor, then it may well be your drivers.
When you right click on your Speaker icon next to the clock, and select 'Sounds', is there anything amiss there? Check under all 4 tabs.

Thanks so much, I found it on the "Communications" tab when I right clicked the speaker and selected "Sounds." Under "When Windows detects communication activity," "Reduce volume of other sounds by 80%" was checked. No idea why this would suddenly be happening, since I don't use my PC for telecommunications or anything like that, but checking "do nothing" instead appears to have completely solved the problem.

jcgriff, thanks for your help as well.