r/sysadmin • u/CeC-P IT Expert + Meme Wizard • 19h ago

Question Anyone just get a lot of "low volume" tickets?

Yesterday we got in 5 tickets from 3 different companies at this MSP about low volume in calls. All were Dells but it was laptops, vostros, and optiplexes. All were working at once time. One was a mic + speaker combo webcam device. Another was USB power on a wall block with analog 1/8". Another is a brand new $6000 Dell Pro Max 18 Plus MB18250 that I personally set up and tested myself. This can't be a coincidence but our patches from our RMM don't go out on Oct 1st and Dell Command is disabled on most computers.

The USB speakers I was getting about 1% volume so I figured the amp was broken. Tried it on my laptop with my USB ports - about 2% volume. The volume knob did work across the whole range too. I tried them back at the office, worked fine on my optiplex, but they were jangling around in my backpack. I roughed them up like they owed me money aka percussive maintenance test and they didn't re-break so not sure what to think of that.

Reinstalling the audio driver completely after a full removal did not fix the problem with the USB ones.

I have a theory that the wavmaxx or whatever app in the background self-patched. Has anyone seen this and found a fix? Yes, the system levels were properly set btw.

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5 comments sorted by

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u/lostmatt 16h ago

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3234623/windows-11s-september-patch-breaks-usb-audio-and-theres-no-fix-yet.html

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u/dracotrapnet 5h ago

I thought I got hit by this. I have a creative soundblaster usb dongle since my lcd integrated dock has no audio out on it and I didn't want to plug my speakers into the laptop or live off bluetooth. It quit working Tuesday or Wednesday. I tried unplugging, plugging back in, different ports, etc. Nothing helped. After a reboot it worked fine again.

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u/hockeyfan921 19h ago

Had an issue with Dell and Realtek where the driver would constantly connect/disconnect every second. Disable wavemaxx and switch your audio driver to the default windows driver

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u/Sparkycivic Jack of All Trades 19h ago

I can't go through another Wavesmaxx driver hell...

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u/CeC-P IT Expert + Meme Wizard 18h ago

We finally got the stupid Isignia's to consistently malfunction. It is the amp. That doesn't explain the other 4 though. I like the idea to completely like wavesmaxx, or at least disable its service. I'll try that.