New Compal Hel 80 - Audio Problems

Hi, I am having problems with a new laptop I purchased from Best Buy. It comes under the Velocity Micro brand. The audio worked fine the first time I tried the laptop however now when I play any DVD's the music is very loud however the sound itself is hardly audible. If I play something online from youtube or other sites the sound is very low. I have played around with the settings and have the volume on full in the volume settings, the application that I am playing the video in as well as the physical button on the laptop. Anything else that I might be missing. Has anyone else faced similar issues? thx

 

Are you talking about the internal speakers or the audio output? Have you recently installed some weird codecs? Can you post a picture of your volume settings? My experience with the audio on the laptop is that it can be very loud, so there's definitely something wrong.

 

Also keep in mind that not every media source has the same volume to it. There are online radio stations that play at lower volumes when compared to a CD or DVD playing--even the max volume is quite a bit soft. I think this is what you're running into.

 

What he said...

 

I was trying out the internal speakers on the laptop. Haven't tried connecting it to external speakers yet. I was listening to this interview on google video and the first time it was extremely loud and clear however when I played it again the next day (same video) the sound was really low. I haven't installed anything in the laptop yet. I will be reformatting and doing a clean install but before I do that I just want to use it for a week or so to confirm everything works ok. I don't have the laptop on me at the moment but will post a image of the audio settings. I have maxed out the settings in the windows itself as well as the utility that came with the laptop for the audio card. I believe it is from creative but can't remember at the moment for sure. It has all these environment settings for like auditorium, playground etc etc. I just maxed out the settings for the mixer. Thx for your help

anyone know how to paste a screen shot. thx

 

To take a screenshot, hit the PrintScreen button. If you hit Alt+PrintScreen, it'll only capture the foremost window. To paste it go to any image editing program, and then paste it (Paint's fine as long as you don't save it as a bitmap). Ctrl+V usually works.

 

Hi l33t_c0w,

Thanks for your reply. I was asking how do I paste it into a post. Someone asked before if I can paste a screen shot of my settings. I tried pasting it but was unable to do so last night. Thx

 

Never mind. Just figured it out. The file attach icon doesn't show in Quick reply but does show up if you hit "post reply". Thx will post a screen shot of the audio settings a bit later.

 

Attached is the screen shot. This is what I have noticed. The sound works fine for some live H.264 feeds that I am playing however when I try to play anything of youtube or google video it is really low. The first day the same video that I played on google video was very loud however now its barely audible. I have adjusted the sound settings to max on the sound card as well as the google video player. Any suggestions? Thx

 

The 'sound effect' tab is not the volume settings. You need to be in the 'mixer' tab crankin things up. Click the "power" button on that 'sound effect tab' I'm sure thats why it sounds so horrible.

 

ah. sorry about that posted the wrong picture. Here is the output from the mixer tab.

Where is the power button in the sound effects tab. I see an option for powerful in the drop 'powerful" option just adjusts all the equalizer settings. Thx

 

The round "universal power" button on the lower right side surrounded by a disk of more buttons. Thats got the power for the "amp" turned on with all those bars slid to the top.. thats got to be killing your listening experience. You could also just click something like 'rock' and use a preset with it left on *what I do*. Just not with the sliders all at the top

BTW.. looking at the new photo you just listed.. the volume is near the very low end on the upper left round thing.. spin it so the dot points more towards straight up or the right.. *hates that tool and just uses windows default*

 

Hi Pyro9219,

Thanks so much for helping. I apologize but I can't seem to quite get the power button in the sound effects tab. Are you talking about the wheel like button above the drop down where I have set "Rock" in the attached picture and the center knob which has a caption of "disable eq" in the attached picture. I thought that was for the equalizer and the buttons around it are just for saving presets etc. The door knob like button in the center is for disabling and enabling the equalizer. I can't seem to move the wheel and don't think it can turn so am a bit confused on what you mean by "power". Sorry about the dumb questions and thanks for your help.

 

Oops... sorry, I'm not being very clear. The Disable EQ button is the one I said to push if you don't want to use the EQ. The first picture you linked had the EQ sliders all topped out which I was trying to say would make for a very bad listening experience.

Now.. on the 'mixer' tab, you have virtual knobs on the left side.. one for playback, one for recording. What I was saying is that it seems nearly muted from the position of the 'dot' on the knob. Try turning that knob until the 'dot' is closer to pointing straight up.

I was kind of going with a "Realtek control panel is crap and you haven't quite figured out how to make it do what you want" approach to solving your problem. The audio hardware itself with a nice set of earphones or external speakers is great, but someone needs to smack those Realtek tool guys.

Anyways, maybe you do know how to use their utility and I just read to much into the screen shots you provided

 

Hi Pyro,

No you are absolutely right. I have no idea how to use that utility and find it rather confusing. But I do find that the sound tab does not affect the sound tab in the utility that comes with windows. I have tried all that you have mentioned in the RealTek control panel but still it doesn't help with any of the videos that I play via youtube or google video. I could swear that the first day I heard this interview on google video it was absolutely awesome but now I can hardly hear it. Everything else plays really well and the sound is awesome. I guess like people mentioned before it could be the video itself. Can anyone play a video of youtube or google video and let me know if it sounds good. I will than do the same for that video and see how it sounds for me. Thanks for your help.

 

You pick a video first, then I'd be willing to try it. I'll even let you know how 'loud' it is compared to other stuff on my system.

Have you installed any codec packs or are you just using the vanilla XP stuff? I'd recommend hitting up fileforum.com and getting yourself k-lite mega codec pack. I've found that while the vanilla XP stuff is enough to get you going, it's normally lacking in the 'better then nothing' department.

 

my quick suggestion, start playing a song on the laptop, hold down the Fn key, then hold down the F8 key for about 5 seconds, ignore realtek. hit start, programs, accessories, entertainment, and volume control. put the wave slider all the way up, and then the master volume (Fn+F8 should have put that all the way up anyways). unless you have some funky software or hardware problem, that song should be playing rather loud. I run into the problem sometimes. mostly its due to some programs adjust master volume, while others, like winamp, adjust the wave volume. (only thing I use realtek for is to drop the volume of gunshots in CS:S, so I can hear footsteps nice and loud, without making my ears bleed when I pull the trigger)

 

Same here, I don't use the realtek software.. All adjustments and EQ stuff I do through winamp... other then that all I need is offered in the windows volume manager.

 

Hi Golluk/Pyro,

Thanks for helping me out on this. Ok I just noticed something that I hadn't before. The sound is fantastic if I play it in a dedicated app like winamp but if I try to play something embedded in a browser window it is just too soft. the volume settings are the same as it was for Winamp. Some windows do have their own sound settings but if it is playing in a browser window even cranking up the volume over there doesn't seem to help. I am using IE 6 SP2. Does this make sense? Thx

 

Give K-lite mega codec pack a try... it 'might' fix the codec's you want better.. I know I don't "use" Windows PC's without this pack.

 

I have installed the codec's but it doesn't seem to help. I even downloaded firefox and am trying to play various video's in that and it doesn't seem to help. However when I download the video and play it in a dedicated app it seems to work fine.

 

OK, let me try another approach then... is the behavior unlike a past system you had? Because honestly it sounds normal to me..

I was hoping that the codec's would smooth things out to some extent, but that is just the nature of things when talking about user created content that is compressed for web streaming.

 

I pretty much agree with what pyro said above. I don't expect much in terms of audio quality or volume when watching video or listening to anything online. If you were having issues with CDs or DVDs having poor audio--it would be more alarming.

 

Hey, if you're playing it in a browser window, what application is running to play it? Quicktime, for example, likes to point all internet media files towards itself when you install it. You might look into application-specific settings for whatever launches inside your browser for that embedded audio.

Is the downloaded form of the video in a different format than the streaming one, or is it just like an mp3, where it's the same file in both places?

 

You get no say on the audio capabilities of this notebook until you get a test headset to validate and hopefully cure your problem

 

A clean fresh install of the o/s has fixed the audio problem. Thx everyone for your help.