I have noticed that everything I listen to now seems to be at reduced volume. At the moment I have a German Techno channel on with the on-screen slider and the speaker at max. The result is pretty much normal where in the past it would been intolerably loud. I have noticed the same on some sports channels recently.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Well the obvious first question is have you checked the mixer settings to make sure you've not got the master volume or the wave output volume turned down.
You may also have a different volume control depending on the sound card and drivers/software you have installed for it, if that's the case you'll need to look for it in either the control panel or your programs on the start menu.
All is working now.
I looked under Control Panel for the sound devices and settings. I found that a file 'sndvol32.exe' was missing. I got a copy of this from a forum, installed it, adjusted settings for various bits and now I can shake the room again.