VOLUME ON MY PC HAS DECREASED DRASTICALLY?

Whoah! Before buying new speakers plug in some headphones into the jack where your speaker output is and see if that gives you full volume.

If it does, it's a speaker thing.

If it doesn't it's either a configuration thing or a hardware problemo with your sound card... please read on.

In the case of Software... I'd check this first: right click on "my computer" then click on properties. Click on the cardware tab. then click on device manager. Then right click on the top computer icon and click on scan for hardware changes. This will reinstall your drivers and should reset most settings. same problem? move onto hardware

In here you'll see a list of categories, find your sound card, right click on it and hit install.

In the case of hardware: I'm guessing you're using onboard sound. In other words the sockets to plug your speakers into are right beside the USB connectors at the back of your PC.

You could buy yourself a PCI sound card. They are very easy to install and assuming you have a spare PCI slot you'd be laughing. If you're totally inexperienced with computers might be an idea to befriend a geek for a week or pay for services from you're local anti-social computer engineer.

Good luck,

R

Sounds like you're still using XP, which means you have two volume sliders, one for VOLUME and one for WAVE.

Make sure BOTH are at 100%.