Latitude E6420 audio volume is very low and tinny

Latitude E6420

Hello. That model is about 5 years old, so is this a new issue or has it been that way all along?

I have an E5420, which might have the same speakers as the E6420. I have directly compared the sound to the sound from my 7" android tablet, and found that they are essentially the same. Both have no bass at all, so I would suppose I could call it a tinny sound. However the E5420 is quite a bit louder than the tablet.

even though it's set to the highest level.

Besides setting the volume level of the audio program (for example Windows Media Player) tpo the highest level, have you also gone to the Speakers properties, the Levels tab, and raised that volume level to max?

I've adjusted the loudness equalization

On mine, those enhancements don't do much. The "bass boost" actually seems to lower the volume a little. I find that checking "disable all enhancements", then "Apply", increases the volume a good bit.

I can get an additional volume boost when I am using Windows Media Player by opening its graphic equalizer and pushing the sliders up. The bass eq sliders don't do anything because the speakers just cannot reproduce bass frequencies, but the other sliders do boost the volume.

I've reinstalled the audio drivers

If none of that helps, try switching between the IDT audio driver and the Windows native audio driver.

1. Open the Device Manager (find it in the Control Panel, or type devmgmt.msc into the search box).
2. Expand the "Sound, video & game controllers" and right click on "IDT High Definition Audio Codec".
3. Select to "Update Driver Software".
4. Click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Click "Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer".
6. Put a check in the box "Show compatible hardware" if not already checked.
7. In the list of devices, click "High Definition Audio" (the native driver).
8. Click "Next".
9. On the Update Driver Warning box, click "Yes" (install the driver).
10. Restart the laptop if prompted. If not prompted, sometimes you have to restart, sometimes not.
[To get back to theIDT driver, do it again but reverse the names in steps 2 and 7.]

If you have the same symptoms with both audio drivers, then it is probably not a driver issue.