HP HDX 18 - low volume level

I bought the HP HDX 18 Laptop a few years back and I've been very happy with it overall. However, some of the video movies I watch on it are just not loud enough. In fact, no matter what I play on it, generally speaking, I'd like more volume. I can adjust the volume fine on my desktop PC, but I just can't get the sound loud enough on the laptop for some videos. Even when I max out the video player volume and the HDX volume control it's not loud enough for some videos. I also maxed out the main volume control for Vista.

Besides the main control, are there any volume controls in Vista that I can tweak? Is there anyway I can adjust the volume via HP software or by way of the sound card software or driver? I'm just not seeing any.

I bought a JLab USB external speaker. It makes it a little louder but the sound isn't so good and I'll need to do better.

So, if there's not a way to adjust the volume through software, can anyone suggest a hardware fix? I don't mind replacing the internal speakers if this is possible. Or, if someone can recommend a good set of external speakers, that might be okay. Nothing too bulky.

While I'm here, there's one other annoyance. When I plug headphones in, I can hear from the headphones, but the audio continues to play out the laptop speakers at the same time. I can disable the internal speaker through the control panel and then it will just work on the headphones, but that's a lot of work to change it that way each time. Anyone know if there's a setting somewhere that I'm not aware of?

Thank you. It's a great laptop otherwise. Forgive me if this the wrong forum, but it seemed like the best choice.