Lets try this way then.

 

Problem: The sound on my laptop is abysmally quiet when I run any type of movie file or sound file in windows media player or iTunes EXCEPT when I run in MediaDirect where the sound is lovely & big . Now why is that?

 I  updated my bios to V08 when it was recommened by dell support to do so for a seperate matter & was delighted to see an update to fix the DPC issues. I just figured this matter would have resolved my sound problems regarding the volume but it hasn't. Anyone have any ideas.

Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium SP2

STUDIO 1737 BIOS A08