M17x.r3 Audio reduction when USB plugged in

So I posted this before, quite a while ago, and to my knowledge never got any useful responses, so I figured I would bring it up again.

Anytime I plug a USB device into the laptop after it has booted, the audio is reduced to about 50% of normal. If I have music playing I can hear it dim down to nearly inaudible levels, forcing me to max the volume on my laptop to be able to even hear it anymore.

At first I had thought it was just a 360 controller, but now I'm aware that it is any and all USB devices that I plug into the system AFTER it has booted into windows.

If I plug everything in prior to booting it, then start it up with them all already plugged in, the volume remains nice and loud.

Its really quite annoying, and I was wondering if anyone knows a fix for it.


tl;dr
Plugging anything into any USB port reduces sound output by nearly half, and it cannot be fixed without removing the USB device, or rebooting.

 

Nevermind, I found the issue.



For those of you wondering, do the following to resolve this issue:


Right click on speaker icon in taskbar;
Click playback devices;
Go to communication tab;
Click the do nothing checkbox;
Click apply;
Click ok;
Reboot

It seems my default windows setting for this was to automatically reduce all sound by 80%, as it was detecting every USB device as a communications device.. Annoying.