Sound Drop on Toshiba Laptop

[Vikingdon1]

I have a Toshiba Laptop and for some reason the volume intensity has become limited.

I have to have it at around 85-90% ( and I have perfect hearing ) to hear it comfortably and that is with the inbuilt volume on whatever I am watching set on 100%.

I have been in all the settings but cannot seem to improve the situation.

Has anyone else suffered with this?

Regards

Vikingdon1

[Vikingdon1]

Can anyone please help with this ?

Regards

Vikingdon1

[kiloran]

What Operating System?

When do you get the low sound level? Playing Youtube stuff on Firefox or Chrome or.....? Playing music via Windows Media Player?
Or....

--kiloran

[Itsallaguess]

I have a Toshiba Laptop and for some reason the volume intensity has become limited.

I have to have it at around 85-90% (and I have perfect hearing ) to hear it comfortably and that is with the inbuilt volume on whatever I am watching set on 100%.

I have been in all the settings but cannot seem to improve the situation.

Does either your media application or your laptop soundcard have settings for a 5.1 or Surround-Sound setting?

I'm only asking because I imagine a laptop would normally be set to stereo output, what with normally having two speakers, but if there's a method of switching into 5.1 or another surround-type setting, then your 'talky' audio spectrum might be wanting to find its way to a centre-speaker that doesn't exist, and you might be trying to turn up the little 'talky' spectrum that often still sits on the outer two speaker channels.

Just a thought in the absence of any other ideas really. There might be a surround option in both the application you're using to play the media and the soundcard settings, so make sure to check both.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Vikingdon1]

I am using W10 and the sound problem is on various wesites but definately more noticable on the BBC Iplayer.

[Vikingdon1]

I am using W10 and the sound problem is on various wesites but definately more noticable on the BBC Iplayer.

[Vikingdon1]

Sorry
I don't know why that post came up twice

Vikingdon1

[Infrasonic]

Go to the search bar bottom left corner and type 'device manager'.

At the top of the column under best match click on device manager (control panel).
Click on the speaker graphic Audio inputs and output
Right click on speakers left click on properties at the bottom of the list.
Report back on what the general/driver/details/events tabs say.

Everything hunky dory, no error reports?

[Vikingdon1]

Infrasonic

Did as you said and device working properly and drivers up to date.

Thanks

[Vikingdon1]

Sorry should have said that I still have the problem.

Vikingdon1

[Infrasonic]

OK.

What's the audio like through headphones, is it the same issue as the speakers?

(If the laptop has a stereo headphone socket try inserting a cabled headphone jack in and out to give it a bit of a clean.
Sometimes if they get a bit of fluff or grit in them it can make the connection partially short.
Generally the speakers will mute when the H/P socket is in use.)

[Vikingdon1]

Infrasonic
Sorry for the delay in replying out of working hours.

The sound on the headphones seem to be ok and I removed the plug many times but the sound on the laptop speakers is still not very powerful.

Regards

Don

[mc2fool]

Have you tried googling to see if anyone else is having the same problems with your model?

The volume on my HP laptop drops after every major Windows 10 update, and, of course, if I do a driver check Windows says that the drivers it installed are fine. The solution is to reinstall the HP drivers but the real point I'm making is that when it first happened I googled and found it was a common problem, and solutions (complete with links to drivers, etc) were readily available for my model.

[Infrasonic]

If it is a driver issue there's a couple of guides here as to how to roll them back to a previous version and lock them to stop them from being updated automatically by Windows in the future.

https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/how-to ... c-drivers/

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/take-back ... indows-10/

I remember when my XP box updated the audio drivers years ago and I completely lost the sound, (all looked fine in device manager/properties.)
In that case I used restore points to get back to where I was, but that's a bit sledgehammer.

The above articles look a bit more useful and there's a couple of specific instances where I wouldn't mind preventing driver updates myself, so it was a fruitful exercise!

[Vikingdon1]

Thanks

Unfortunately only having W10 Home the features you have linked me to are not available.

I will take your advice and google the specific model number of my laptop to see if anyone else has had the same problem.

Glad you have learned something useful in your efforts to help me.

I will come back in due course but thanks for now

Don

[Infrasonic]

Thanks

Unfortunately only having W10 Home the features you have linked me to are not available.

I will take your advice and google the specific model number of my laptop to see if anyone else has had the same problem.

Glad you have learned something useful in your efforts to help me.

I will come back in due course but thanks for now

Don

Hmm, it's the same for me I'm on home. The option is there just greyed out but this 2017 updated HTG article doesn't stipulate it being a enterprise/pro only feature.
https://www.howtogeek.com/223864/how-to ... indows-10/

Maybe it can't roll back after a major update?

You could always do a manual delete and install of a known working driver.

[Itsallaguess]

Sorry should have said that I still have the problem.

Did you check if any surround-sound settings had been altered?

I posted about the possibility earlier in the thread, but it's not clear that you checked.

I'd expect headphones being plugged in to be actioned by changing anything to stereo, which might explain why headphones sound OK, but going back to speakers gives you volume issues, if there's a chance it's popping back to an odd surround-sound format (5.1 / Surround etc...) when you take them back out?

Just a slim chance of this being the issue, I think, but given the lack of any other progress then it's probably worth ruling this out.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Infrasonic]

OK this HTG article is saying that W10 home edition can only do driver update blocking via registry edit...

https://www.howtogeek.com/302595/how-to ... e-drivers/

Home Users: Stop Driver Updates by Editing the Registry
On Windows 10 Home, you can only change this option via the Registry. You can also do it this way if you have Windows Pro or Enterprise, but just feel more comfortable working in the Registry as opposed to Group Policy Editor. (If you have Pro or Enterprise, though, we recommend using the Group Policy Editor, as described later in this article.)

This should prevent Windows 10 Home from installing driver updates, but Microsoft could change this behavior at any time and ignore this setting on Windows 10 Home. Microsoft added this hidden option in the Anniversary Update.

Chris Hoffman is normally pretty good with his accuracy so it might be MS changing the goalposts with the updates that is leading to the confusion for W10 Home.

[Breelander]

Unfortunately only having W10 Home the features you have linked me to are not available.

While the Group Policy editor isn't available in Home, the registry settings it would have changed can be manually set in Home. See Option Two here...
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/159 ... ml#option2

[Vikingdon1]

I have taken another route.

Via the Toshiba website I have downloaded the " Toshiba Audio Enhancement Software "

This appears to have helped on many sites but strangely not on the BBC I player but I can live with that !

Thanks again for your help.

Vikingdon1