ALt-Tab Leaving you Partially Deaf?

[jackrabbit]

Since using Alt-Tab no longer causes my PC to lag for 5 minutes, I've been using it frequently. However, since I started doing so, I noticed there are times when I return to the game and the audio, while still at my normally set levels, is suddenly painfully loud.

When Heather also stated she experienced this, I stopped assuming it was a bug specific to me.

I found this post on Shacknews (http://www.shacknews.com/ja.zz?id=11383002) that has info apparently gleaned from Blizzard Tech Support:

WoW Sound Bug Fix

For those of you that run World of Warcraft and alt-tab out to other apps, you've probably been driven insane now by the "percent chance to crank your wow volument to 2000% on return to wow.exe"

AFAIK this bug has existed since release. Well, I have a fix that has worked for many people in my guild and hopefully will work for you...

Navigate to your World of Warcraft\WTF\ folder (default is under C:\Program Files\)
Open the config.wtf file there with WordPad (not Notepad)
Add the following line at the bottom of the list inside the file.

SET soundmaxhardwarechannels "0"

Save the file and close it.
Start the game and test to see if the issue still exists.

I got this info from *gasp* writing to blizz tech support. I think this is the first time in my life that tech support actually helped me with something!

[Tai]

does this disable hardware support for sound, thus bypassing some bug? Ah well, I'll try it, I've been alt-tabbing out to thottbot a lot recently, and have certainly noticed that issue.

[Q]

For me, the audio bug is specific to the music and not other sounds and will fix itself if I change zones. If I don't change zones, I change the volume through the menu and that fixes it.

[jackrabbit]

What I had been doing is clicking on the volume slider in Titan Panel. I change the volume from 100% to 100%.

It works, so the volume it probably at 300% from the bug. It's loud. I suppose I could just turn off music, too.

[Creole Ned]

I really like the music (par for the course in a Blizzard game) but after hearing the city themes a jillion times I've turned it off for now. I've not noticed the sound bug since but I don't tab out of the game that much, either.

[Circuit]

Like Q said, it seems to be only the music that gets loud. For me, it usually stops after the song loop ends and will sometimes correct itself if I alt-tab out and back in again. Same as Ned, I like the music a lot, but am completely sick of hearing the triumphant Ironforge theme endlessly.

[Paladin]

I never had this problem, and I ALT-TAB all the time. But I don't run the music, so that may be it. Is it only the music that cranks up?