I can't seem to get my volume up very much (it's hearable, but quite low) even though I've got the volume sliders all the way up in volume control. I'm using stereo headphones and I've tried all the jacks but I still can't get it up very loud. When I put the headphones into the headphone jack on the cdrom, I can listen to cd's at a good volume, but that's it. DOes anyone have any tips? thanks!

are you plugging the head phones into speakers or directly into the sound card? some sound cards have a volume adjustment directly on the card. check the manuel if yours has that. makes sure that the balence in the sound control panel is equal. make sure there are no volume controls that have "mute" checked .

Also make sure you're connecting the headphones into the correct jack, as the sound can arc from one port to the next (you can hear it, but it's quiet). Also, goto settings - sound and audio devices and make sure everything is maxed (device volume, speaker volume) and under advanced speaker settings, make sure both channel volumes are right up there. Mits.

The problem is that most sound cards these days don't have an amplified output. The have a pre-amp level output that is meant to be used by powered speakers. Since your headphones don't have an amplifier built into them, you get a low volume.