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I've had the following issue that has happened for the last year or so off and on, but has gotten much worse recently. I'm running Windows 11.

I have a set of headphones that has no volume control. These headphones are USB headphones, plugged in to my computer via a USB hub. The only way I have to control the volume is via the master volume, which I usually set to around 5-8 to be reasonable.

Randomly the volume level goes way up, although the posted level remains at whatever I set it to previously. If I change the volume, it will change back to a more reasonable level, until something triggers the issue to happen again. Sometimes it works well for a long time, but most often it happens once every few minutes.

It seemed to go away when I replaced my USB hub, but started up again recently, possibly with an update to my graphics drivers, but I'm not exactly sure what the trigger was.

Any thoughts as to what I can do to fix this?

EDIT: A few other things I've noticed

  1. It seems to happen when I either switch applications, or when starting a new application. It often will jump a few seconds after the change. Not every switch causes a jump, and not every jump is related to a switch.
  2. There is usually a short pause, a fraction of a second, between when it is the correct volume (~6-10) and when it becomes way too loud.
  3. It seems to happen more often when I am streaming. This might be related to multiple volume sources? In fact, this might be a key.
PearsonArtPhoto
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  • Does this happen with system audio, or only specific things like browsers or programs? – Kalamalka Kid Jul 22 '23 at 21:38
  • System volume. It might happen when I do things like switch tabs or something like that, I can't tell the trigger. It's worth noting that the reported volume level stays the same. – PearsonArtPhoto Jul 22 '23 at 21:44
  • thanks for the reply. Does this happen when using any other program than a web browser though? – Kalamalka Kid Jul 22 '23 at 22:05
  • Yes, absolutely! Everything, so far as I can tell, even the system volume goes up. It might be that the volume increase only happens when I am in a browser, but whatever triggers it, it affects everything. – PearsonArtPhoto Jul 23 '23 at 03:01
  • Do any of these answers help? https://superuser.com/questions/948602/windows-10-volume-randomly-jumps-to-100 – Daniel Kaplan Sep 14 '23 at 23:30
  • I have the exact same problem except none of the things you mentioned after your edit happen in my case. My headset happens to have a physical volume control. That makes me suspect we are sharing the same symptoms but a different cause. Also, I'm on Windows 10. This occurred to me on my old hard drive and it suddenly started happening again; new hard drive, new OS, but same issue. I think this is coincidental, but if I recall, the last thing I installed before it showed up was Node v18.17.1 on Windows. – Daniel Kaplan Sep 14 '23 at 23:52
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    Disabling the sound effects seems to help a bit, but it still occasionally happens. This could still be quite helpful. Thanks! – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 15 '23 at 20:21
  • Out of curiosity, do you have WSL setup on your system? I'm noticing that can be a pattern for some. – Daniel Kaplan Sep 16 '23 at 02:10
  • I don't think so? Not sure what that is, so I assume the answer is no. – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 17 '23 at 03:03
  • Gotcha. Okay, that might rule out a potential similarity between us. Due to the nature of this issue, it's hard to say if this made a difference, but I don't think I've noticed it occur again since I turned off system beeps: https://superuser.com/a/10578/89165 – Daniel Kaplan Sep 18 '23 at 18:14

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