Motherboard - ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition
Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
O/S - Windows Vista x64 SP2 v.113
In Vista, you have the standard Speaker icon. It will show 0-3 green "waves" on the right side, depending on the volume level. It will also have a red "no" symbol on it when the volume is muted. That speaker icon is working fine, and it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
The problem is... when you left-click on the speaker icon, the volume "panel" will appear. It has the volume control "slider" on it. When you manually adjust the "slider", it will do 2 things. First, it will give a "ding" to show you the current audio level you just set. And second, it will "flash" 2 bars. A 'green' bar and a 'gray' bar. The bars show you the current audio level and the audio limit. These bars are now missing, and no longer appear. I have reinstalled my sound drivers several times. I have updated to SP2 (to see if it would "fix" the problem). I have checked for policies in the registry. Nothing seems to work. As I stated above, I created a new user account on this computer (just as a test) and the volume bars work fine. So it is something that got "disabled/turned off" with my main user account. I have been trying to find a solution to this problem for months. I have searched everywhere and can't find any info about it...
NOTE - I have tried 3 different sound drivers and I have tried removing all sound devices. The problem seems to be with "Windows" and not the sound drivers/devices.
-Thanks