If you have Windows 7 or 8, right-click the sound icon and sellect the Sound Mixer.
It'll show one meeter per sound source plus a general one. Just after starting the system, you should have only Speaker and System sounds.
Try increasing the volume around 35%. If you hear a sound BUT you see NO activity on the mixer, you have a hardware problem. This mean that you'll need to continue using a low volume. On a laptop, you can't swap a faulty audio card for a new one...
If there is some source that show some activity when there should be none, you can mute it or set it's volume to 0%. It would be beter to prevent that tast from starting at all, and maybe uninstall the responsible application or "utility".
You may have a sound for an event that is very long, maybe a corrupted sound file.
In the Control pannel, open the "Sounds". Sellect the Sounds tab.
In turn, sellect the various events and click the "Test" buton. If you find your anoying sound, sellect another, short, sound to replace it. Click Apply.
You should get the latest audio drivers from the maker's web site. Those are always available free of charges. Look under "Support" or "Downloads". Installing or updating drivers is done the same way tou install any ordinary application: Just double-click the downloaded file and follow the instructions.
Electro, February 2013
