Low volume speaker

I doubt if dell is anwering any satisfactory answer here or just gave a platform to share our problems!

Hello. The Dell Community Forum is a platform for Dell owners to share thoughts and solutions. Dell employees sometimes post on the boards but most often their purpose seems to be to promote Dell's pricey out-of-warranty service. If the laptop has intentionally low volume there is nothing a Dell employee can say to you here on the forum that will be a satisfactory answer.

I am facing low volume problem even at 100%.I tried everything from updating drivers to reinstalling OS to all possible settings.but,nothing is working.Dell is saving itself by saying that system is passing all hardware tests ,hence they cant do anything.

The laptop could really be performing the way Dell intended. A lot of people install third party media players that can be pushed to higher volumes than the standard Windows Media Player, but the method used to do that can result in damage to the speakers that Dell has to fix on machines that are under warranty. So lately Dell has been limiting the top volume on some models. As far as I know the Inspiron 15 3542 is not one of the models with limited volume, but it could be.

Fooling the customer is now their new tactice.My laptop is totally new,a insipron 15 3542 model.Now,I am hopeless,can please anyone suggest me possible solution.

The laptops come with a return period so a person can return it if it is not satisfactory for his or her needs. If your return period has expired you can try these things:

Try switching from the Realtek audio driver to the Windows native audio driver.

1. Open the Device Manager (Control Panel>Device Manager).
2. Expand the "Sound, video & game controllers" and right click on "Realtek High Definition Audio".
3. Select to "Update Driver Software".
4. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Click "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer".
6. Put a check in the box "Show compatible hardware" if not already checked.
7. In the list of devices, click "High Definition Audio Device" (the native driver).
8. Click "Next".
9. On the Update Driver Warning box, click "Yes" (install the driver).
10. Restart the laptop if prompted. If not prompted, then no need to restart.
[To get back to the Realtek driver,  do it again but reverse the names in steps 2 and 7.]

If the volume is still excessively low with the native driver then it is not a driver problem. It is either a hardware limitation or a limit set in the BIOS.

You should be able to increase the volume by open the equalizer in your media player and moving all of the sliders to their maximum values. Here is a screen shot of it in Windows Media Player.

There are also some eq controls in the Sound dialog you can boost. Open Sound (Control Panel>Sound). Right click on Speakers to open the context menu and click Properties. Select the Enhancements tab. Put a check next to bass boost and Loudness Equalization. On bass boost, click the Settings button. Try the different frequencies to see which gives the most volume. Click Apply.

If you use the Preview feature, I think you have to use a wav file, and each time you make a change in a setting you must stop the music if it is playing and play the play button again to hear the change.

Also, your laptop might have come with WavesMaxx software. Look for "Dell Audio Manager" in the Control Panel. If there, open it and look for WavesMaxx which might have some similar eq settings you can boost. [Note -- you have to be using the Realtek audio driver to use any Waves software you might have.]

Finally, some media players are louder than others. Give VLC Media Player a try.