I have a Gigabyte mobo (GA-8IPE1000 Pro-G) w/ built-in sound.
I am pretty sure I plugged in everything properly since I can hear them at the right places, however the output volume is so low...
Even w/ application volume control set to the highest and Win2K volume control set to the highest, I only hear maybe about 10% of the normal volume sound. I have all the latest drivers installed and have installed all the latest Windows updates.

Gigabyte is telling me that it's because I am using unamplified speakers, but the same set of speakers work fine in my older machine with SoundBlaster 16.

Anyone else experiencing or have experienced same type of problem? Were you about to fix it? If so how? Please help... it is very annoying with my brand new system that I built, I can't watch movies or play MP3s and hear them well... Thanks...

- Ki

Gigabyte is telling me that it's because I am using unamplified speakers, but the same set of speakers work fine in my older machine with SoundBlaster 16.
- Ki

well you aren't using the SoundBlaster16 on the new computer now are you? That card must have a higher level output than the onboard sound of your current motherboard. I have the same problem with my speakers on my work computer, little passive speakers are inaudible, but heaphones work well. Why not install that SB16 into your new computer or get powered speakers?

I wanted to try that SB16, however it's an ISA card and motherboard these days don't seem to have ISA slots anymore... It is just odd that all the other computers that I've seen w/ built-in sound in motherboard doesn't seem to have any problems except mine... Like Dell and IBM's PCs seems to be loud and clear... and I am pretty sure that I am using whole lot better mobo than what they are using w/ their PCs.

Anyway... I may end up getting a cheap SoundBlaster PCI card (not just yet though...) and hopefully that will work better...

Do you have both "line out" & "speaker out" connections?
Amplified speakers should be connected to the "line out";
unampliied speakers should be connected to the "speaker out".
If the "speaker out" connections are not powerful enough for your speakers, but ARE powerful enough for headphones, then...
I guess you need either a separate little amplifier for your speakers, or new speakers with their own inbuilt amplifier.

I am pretty sure that I am using whole lot better mobo than what they are using w/ their PCs.
You are. Mobos that provide ample power to unpowered speakers are taxing your PSU in the computer. Why would you want to do that? I'd rather use external amplification for my speakers and reserve the PSU's wattage for processor, video and accessory card uses.

Get yourself an amplifier or powered speakers (like the other 99% of us) and be done with it. I wasn't even aware that pc speakers were available unpowered until recently. :rolleyes:

Thank you all for your comments.
Well.. what do you know.. The amplified or powered speakers seem to generate the sound properly at the right volume levels... After doing some research, it looked like the SB16 that I had in my old computer is pre-amplified w/ 4 Watts so that it was playing loud, however the sound in mobo is not amplified and that's why I was having this issue. I wonder if I will get loud enough sound if I hook up my computer's sound to my stereo system. I am worried that since the input sound is soft the output may be too, but I guess I will just have to try it.

PS. My mobo only has line-in, speaker/headphone, and microphone ports.

I wonder if I will get loud enough sound if I hook up my computer's sound to my stereo system
That's EXACTLY what I do with my main pc. It works great!!! You'll like it, I'm sure.

On my other pc's I have either small desktop speakers (powered) or on one of them I use a boombox that has an 1/8" line input. That sounds quite good too...

Connecting my onboard sound to the receiver didn't produce loud enough sound. So I ended up getting SoundBlaster PCI 128 because my motherboard doesn't have any ISA slot. (What am I going to do with all my ISA modems and sound cards???)
Anyway, it worked briefly and somehow I think I killed my motherboard.. I have a new thread about that... Anyway, for that brief moment it worked, that's what I needed. Loud and clear sound even w/ unamplified PC speakers... I've just got to get my motherboard replaced. I hope they don't give me a refurbished one... I think it's probably cheaper to give a new motherboard than fix one...

Anyway... so at least the sound problem is now solved... but my motherboard is dead... so I can't do anything for a while...

Thank you all again for your replies...

- Ki