My PC speakers are too soft

My PC speakers are too soft

We have a new XP PC. Lots of RAM, HD and 3 GHZ Intel CPU.

But we can barely hear the sound from the speakers.
We have increased the volume to FULL.

The same speakers on our OLD PC is loud.

Can anyone pls help us out ?

Thanks
Kim

 

Is it possible that your old computer had the amplifiers on the sound
card and your speakers have no amps? This kind would not have a power
supply wall wart. You might try some new amplified speakers.
Glenn Gundlach

 

This is a very typical complaint when playing DVD movies on a PC, especially
a laptop.
Is that what you are doing?

 

One possibility: your proud new "XP PC" has a cheesy sound chip. After
you check all the software settings (to make sure you don't have volume
turned down somewhere in the MS muddle), buy a reasonable sound card.

Another possibility, less likely but cheaper and easier to fix: you have
the speakers plugged into the "line out" port instead of the "speaker
out" port.

 

"line out port" ? if there was any, yes.... but it's a "line in" on a
standard pc

 

I had a similar problem. It turns out that one of the volume controls
for a seemingly unrelated partion of the sound system was turned way
down. IIRC it was the Line In control (Control Panel/Sound*/??). I am
not at an XP computer right now (win2000, so the controls are not the
same) -- I am describing it from memory.

Just keep looking in the Control Panel, in the Sound devices for a
control window that has a bunch of volume controls (Microphone,
Speaker, Line Out, Line In, etc.) and "play" with those -- one of them
might fix the problem.

Hope this helps.

 

Hmm. What's a "standard" PC?

 

simple : at current time an ATX mobo,
and even most sound cards haven't got a line out

 

It was a rhetorical question. There was no need to embarrass yourself
further by answering. As a matter of fact, the "speaker out" is the
terminal that is most often missing from the simpler sound
configurations, as most speakers built for PC are powered.

No matter. Since you know, without asking, all about the configuration
of the man's computer, go ahead and use your telekinesis powers to fix
it. Let us know how that works out.

 

---
From your first post here, when you weren't challenged when you
erroneously claimed that a gold fourth band represented a tolerance of
5%, through your rant that as a fed grunt you're really pretty
impotent, to this last one about that rhetorical question dodge, it
seems that with every post you've written so far you've been intent on
gradually turning yourself into an authoritarian dick. Is there a
reason for that?

 

Care to recommend one specifically? I don't know of any currently
available that have onboard amplifiers. The OP needs some "reasonable"
amplified speakers. Most new boards have either a Realtek or C-Media
(weaker features) sound chipset, no power amp. The days of 5W output
sound cards is likely gone forever.

The green jack (usually) *is* a line-out, it just happens to be
adjustable. The blue jack is line-in (or optionally the rear outs) and
the pink is the mic connector (or optionally the front center and
subwoofer outs).

 

definition of "line out" :
- An analog port for a sound device that allows a device to send a
line-level audio signal and has no amp on the signal path. This is opposed
to an amplified signal on a speaker out port which has usually low impedance
- fixed level (0.7 ... 1.2Vpp)
- output impedance 800...1200 Ohm

I also wonder how a "line out" even could be mixed up/interchanged for a
"speaker out" since a speaker connected to a "line out" would only produce
say 1mWpp of power, so it can hardly be heard

The statement remains : a common soundcard / PC has NO "line out" in *any
way* since "speaker out" and "line out" are not interchangable
(however, a "speaker out" *can* be used as a "line out" if the voltage level
remains low enough bu adjusting volume, but distortion might arise since no
impedace matching exists)

 

Wow, you have some kind of grudge going or something? I'll take a
minute and answer some of your objections. It would have been nice for
you to identify message ID's, but I know that strained emotions
sometimes interfere with rational thought.

First, in message I said:
==

The tolerance. I think gold is 1%.
==
"I think gold is 1%." That's not a claim, that's a guess, a dim
recollection if you like. If it bothered you so much, you could have
corrected me then. I guess I should take this opportunity to correct
you, in that I did not "claim that it was 5%," but rather guessed that
it was 1%. Forgive me if I do not make my correction in the same
childish and scolding manner as yours.

Your second objection apparently deals with this message:


What is your point about impotency? I don't follow your logic, would
you care to explain where you got that idea? Attempting to read my own
post objectively (a tough task but I tried), I see frustration with
bureaucracy. What position of great power do you hold? What allows you
to read that frustration as impotence, and why does it disturb you so?

Finally, what do you mean by a "rhetorical question dodge?" I posted a
couple of suggestions, and I got flamed. Ok, fine. I flamed back, I
suppose too subtly for some of the crew. You see, I believe there is no
such thing as a standard PC. I have about eight different types of
motherboards in my den, five working (the others too old to mess with),
and all five are different in many respects, from type of memory to type
of processor to bus board configurations, etc. Perhaps you'd care to
let me know how many PCI slots a standard PC has? Is the video AGP, PCI
Express, or just PCI? Does it have SATA or not? What brand BIOS does a
standard PC have? C'mon John, my question was dripping with sarcasm.
"What is a standard PC?" Do you truly not see the irony?

Simply focusing on the subject of sound cards, the array of what can be
purchased is almost dizzying. Go to Frye's and browse their inventory.
Go to a store such as Guitar Center, and see the kinds of things a
serious musician can plug into a computer.

Take a look at these messages:




And tell me where I'm "intent on gradually turning [my]self into an
authoritarian dick." Do you notice in that last message where I tell
the poster I am replying to "...that sounds like a great suggestion...?"

John, what's your beef? Are you the newsgroup doorman, and did I forget
to bring my invitation?

 

Al, FYI :
- *anyone* being really involved in electronics (be it PC or otherwise)
*knows* the meaning of the coloured bands on components, so 'guessing'
is beside all professionalism as far as I see it...
- the point was SOUND CARD I/O, and not mobo's or whatever else, so I
don't see the point of getting those in to make your point since *most*
users only see what's outside a PC
- and since *most* of us are no guitarists, *most* of us (+/- 95% ?) have
"standard" sound card connections thus having *NO* line out
(ok, non standard things do exist I must admit, I even
*designed (=HW) AND programmed (=SW)* some of those as well in as out
of PC environment, but are those the point in
this 'generic' discussion ??)
- and for the definition of "line out", see my previous mailing
at so there's no
mixup in "line out" and "speaker out" to 'sarcasm' on ;-))
- and for the remark /quote/ "As a matter of fact, the "speaker out"
is the terminal that is most often missing from the simpler sound
configurations, as most speakers built for PC are powered" /end quote/:
*every* (even the simplest) sound card has a "speaker out" terminal,
it's where one connects the speakers. It's a normalized 'regulated
amplified output' capable of driving real low-impedance speakers.
Reading the definition of 'line out' makes clear they are not
interchangable and thus a "standard PC" has *NO* "line out".

 

---
Naa... It just irks me when some mean-spirited little prick like you
starts beating people up unnecessarily.
---

---
I don't see where rational thought and supplying you with message IDs
have anything to do with each other. After all, it's not incumbent on
me to walk you over to where you took a dump and point it out to you.
---

---
Truth be told, I didn't notice it back then because I didn't read it
back then. I only noticed it when I read some nasty crack you made and
then went back and read the rest of your posts to find out what you
were about.
---

---
Forgive you? **** you, you snotty ass. To someone reading your post
with no clue as to what the color codes mean, your guess comes across
as a statement from someone more knowledgeable than they are, claiming
that such-and-such is true. In fact, it wasn't, and it would have
taken only a few minutes to find a URL, through Google, which you
could have referred the poster to for a definitive, objective answer.

Furthermore, guesses have no business on a technical forum when
factual information is what's asked for.
---

---
I can use MS Word, or not, as I see fit, my choice of browsers and,
indeed, operating systems is up to me, and I can pretty much run my
day at work the way _I_ want to, not the way I'm _told_ to, like you
are.
---

---
It's really quite simple. The frustration comes about because of your
inability to do anything about changing what you don't like into what
you would like. That inability comes about because of lack of power,
and that lack of power is impotence.
---

---
It doesn't. After all, it's _your_ frustrating day at work, not mine,
eh?
--

---
By claiming that something is a rhetorical question, the
responsibility for the interpretation of the "real" meaning behind the
question falls on the receiver, thereby allowing the generator of the
question to dodge having to explain the question.
---

---
Why blame it on the crew? You haven't yet proven yourself to be some
great bard whose every line should be scrutinized for subtlety. Far
from it, with your admission that you didn't understand how
frustration indicates impotence, you've demonstrated that even though
your technical command of the language may be adequate, the finer
points of the emotional aspects of wielding it are beyond you.
---

---
Your statement was:

"Hmm. What's a "standard" PC?"

Which, due to its phrasing and punctuation and its use in the context
of the post preceding it seemed to me to neither drip sarcasm nor to
be ironic in any way.
---

 

You didn't note the rather obvious quotation marks then. It's pretty
obvious by the rest of your post that, even though I took a lot of time
and patiently responded to your insulting first post, that you only care
to respond to your very shallow first impression of me with repeated
insults based on nothing more than some obsessed inner hatred of people
who dare to express their opinions.

If you have no intention of going over every post of mine, then why did
you do it in the first place? If you're going to obsess, then obsess
with gusto!

One of us did. I gave it a chance, I responded to your insults with
rationality. You responded with more and increasingly bitter insults,
and no substance. It's pretty obvious which one of us is "mean
spirited."

I'll continue to post as I wish here. You may continue to obsess, or
you may ignore. I really don't care one way or the other, people like
you aren't worth getting upset about. Life's too short for such
juvenile indulgences.

 

This is a discussion forum. The question posed asked what the band
meant. I responded, "Tolerance." That's a correct answer. I then
posited a guess as to what tolerance it is. There's no shame in making
a mistake, especially when it is admitted up front that it's a guess.

You're repeating a mistake. The bottom-dollar on-board sound will have
a line-out, not a speaker-out, as myself and others have stated. Now,
take a look at what you are saying here, and read your admonition in
your first paragraph about my misguided guess.

But - "line out" is an indication that the signal requires
amplification. It does ill service to start throwing around terms too
loosely, redefining them at will. Again, read your first paragraph. If
you preach it, you should live it. Myself, I'm willing to cut breaks in
the hopes that the favor will be returned. We all make mistakes.

And oh by the way, thanks for not turning this into an insult fest.
FWIW, I suppose I was a little curt in previous statements, so I
apologize for that, and appreciate that we could communicate as adults.

 

Hey Kim,
This happened to me once and I was trying everything to fix it and it was
operator error. Did you double click the speaker icon and turn up wave, SW
synth and anything else you might see? My problem was the CD audio turned
way down and I was using a good set of desk speakers with it's volume
turned up.
-Ray

 

In addition to all the good suggestions everyone pointed out, you might
also try the Volume Up/Volume Down keys on your keyboard - on my home
computer, they are above the numeric keypad on the right, next to the
Sleep button.

That is, if your computer has these buttons above the numeric keypad.

Mike
www.darrettenterprises.com