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    P-7805u-FX Sound Issues: Sound Card... or Sound Card?

    Discussion in 'Gateway and eMachines' started by kevalin, Nov 29, 2011.

  1. kevalin

    kevalin Notebook Guru

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    Hey folks,

    I'm having a bit of an issue with my sound of late, where I'll be listening to music or whatever on earphones and suddenly the sound will go from being inordinately soft to inordinately loud, and vice-versa.

    The issue is, I can't tell if it's the external sound card I use (a SIIG SoundWave 7.1 Pro) or the internal sound card. It's wholly possible that it is the SIIG, though it's only about six months old... but I'm noticing that, even without the USB sound card connected, the computer's sound doesn't seem to be getting the level of volume on earphones or in general that it used to (Actually, that was always true of this computer; I have an old Gateway 6023GP that sounds a thousand times better than the P-7805 ever did, and Windows 7 seems to be designed to make your sound pitiful, from what I can tell. God knows, recording through Audacity with Windows 7 is a travesty).

    How can I easily determine the source of this problem without having to replace one, the other, or both sound cards at this time? While I'm willing to pay what it costs to get a new card or two, I'd really rather not replace one if it doesn't actually need replacing.

    Indeed, is the internal sound card even replaceable on p7805 without having to wholly dismantle the computer? And if it is either more economical or more necessary to replace the internal card, what recommendations does anyone have for a good to excellent replacement for this Gateway model laptop?
     
    kevalin, Nov 29, 2011
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  2. StormJumper

    StormJumper Notebook Virtuoso

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    First what I would try is take out the external sounds card and uninstall those drivers and software for it and then next uninstall your laptop sounds card drivers and software and then reboot. After that make sure the sounds drivers from Gateway are the latest drivers and something the manufacture has updates that Gateway might not have but will update those drivers and software for it. I would give that a try first before using external sounds card to see what if anything is wrong first at least that way you can diagnosis if the sound card in the laptop is good or bad.
     
    StormJumper, Dec 3, 2011
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