Can a sound card drive affect volume levels?

[NachT]

Hey guys,

I'm just using the on-board sound on my motherboard (Asus P5Q). When I formatted to Windows 7, I downloaded the W7 drivers from the Asus site for the sound card, and my sound is now a lot quieter than it used to be in Vista...

I'm having to turn my speakers up to 3 bars to get it roughly the same db's as when I used to have to turn it to just 1 - 1 and a half bars.

I've gone through all the control panels and made sure all the volume levels are at max, but this hasn't helped.

Any help much appreciated!


- Also while on the subject, if I switched over to a digital TOS cable instead of normal 3.5mm jacks, would this make any improvement in sound level or quality?

Speakers are logitech Z-5500 or something like that.

 

[Greebo]

Can't help with the volume but if using onboard sound then optical link to the z5500 will sound better.

 

[3dcandy]

are you sure the volume is set to 100%? when I updated drivers it was set to something like 64% which is about the level you're getting...

 

[dovey]

I had a similar thing and found the speakers were individually turned down in sound properties. I went control panel > sound > speakers > properties, so I had general, tone, level tabs etc. Have a look on the levels tab and check all the speakers are set to 100%. I found that despite my volume being set to the normal setting all the speakers were set to some odd percentage which meant they were quieter.