Application sound goes down when USB device plugged in

[Mayuukosan]

Hello!

My computer
Video card       ATI Radeon HD 7750
Processor        AMD Phenom 2 quad core
Ram                 16 gigs
Motherboard   MSI 870A-G54
Power supply  Corsair GS 600
OS: Dual Boot Windows 7 64-bit and Ubuntu 10.04

Clarification
There are three types of volume controls I will mention, so here I will clarify...Volume Mixer control is the one in the system tray....when you choose Open Volume Mixer it shows all programs that have sound has it's own volume control. Application Volume would be the volume control in the application...like the volume on YouTube videos or on VLC/WMP. Speaker/Headphone volume is the knob on the physical speakers/headphones. This problem only happens in Windows 7, not Ubuntu.

The Problem
This is another strange problem of mine. When listening to music, or watching movies, I usually keep the Speaker/Headphone volume knob turned all the way up. I also keep the Volume Mixer at 100%, except for System Sounds, which I keep at about 15%, otherwise the "plug in/unplug" sound or any other system sound is very loud. So I adjust the volume in the Application Window. 

Under my Volume Mixer in the system tray, I have two sections, one labeled Devices and one Applications. Under Devices there is Speakers (100%), and under applications System Sounds (15%) and whatever I am playing (chrome 100%, VLC 100%, Steam 100%).

But when I plug in any USB item, (so far my 2 externals, my phone, my music player, and my tablet), the "plug in" system sound will go off quietly, but then any other sound playing, in the Volume Mixer Control, will move to 15%. I have to open the Volume Mixer and change the volume back to 100% for the application. Same for any system sound that may occur (like those error beeps or anything else).

So if I had Chrome, VLC, or Steam (or any combination) playing sounds, before a system sound, the Volume Mixer would show the volume at 100%, but after a system sound goes off, it moves to 15%, the System Volume.

I found This which says to change the options under Communication in Sound Properties window to "Do Nothing" which I have done, but the problem persists.

The past
This started happening just two days ago, my computer restarted while I was gone, and it no longer recognized my externals. In the Computer window, it would show the drive letter, but not the space it had, and I could not access the device. I unplugged and replugged the externals, and they appeared properly. I did a disc check on both the externals (made sure to check "Fix file system Errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors") and nothing bad came up, and nothing changed. This is when the system sounds began really loud, plugging in the externals. So I lowered the volume in the Volume Mixer, and now any other sounds lower to the System sound settings when the system plays a sound.

A weird bit : When I start the computer, it shows all USB devices plugged in, on the BIOS screen before I boot into a OS. The externals now no longer display the name properly(They used to say WD Mass Storage or something similar), it is just a set of random letters and numbers. The letters change each time. For example, the last time I restarted they were ô2gūǫ and ǵõj4: . It has not changed start-up in any other way, and I can still access and use the drives.

Other bits of information
The external names do not display properly in BIOS start-up on my other computer.  My other computer is a Copaq Presario C700 laptop running Windows 7 64bit.
Even when the drives are not plugged in the sounds go weird.
When I plug the drives into the computer with the sound error, they say I must format the drive to use it. I do not get that message on my laptop.
I am not sure if the drives are even part of the problem, it just seems coincidental that the drives went weird the same day the sound did.
The sound does not go weird in Ubuntu, only in Windows. I do not really want to reinstall if I do not need to.
Uninstalled/reinstalled audio drivers, no change.
I have an old Motherboard that is unused for other error reasons, switched that in and it still reads the external names weird in start up.
Switched out the USB cords used on the externals, no change.

My main questions
So! Anyway to change the system sounds to quiet, like before? Or to get the application Volume Mixer to stay the same? If there is some sort of way to turn off all system sounds, I would go for that.
Also, should I format the drives? Or just let them be?

Thank you for any help!

[Mayuukosan]

Reformatted the hard drives, and now they display correctly in the BIOS screen, but the sound problem persists. 

Until I went to System Sounds (where you can change the sound scheme) and selected No Sounds.  Now no sounds play, and the Volume Mixer stays at the number I place it.

Yay! Sort of! Still have no idea what happened. And if I enable sounds, it still does the same error...but I do not mind having no Windows beeps anymore. 

Marking as (sort of) solved.

[Geek-9pm]

Reformatted the hard drives, and now they display correctly in the BIOS screen, but the sound problem persist

That is not the way to solve most problems. Unless you really need to reset the hard drive.

You can change the system sounds. You can create hour own, or import a set of sounds. You can  lower the volume of each sound by used a sound editor, such as Aucacity, to reduce the level of all the important system sounds. First make a backup of each sound first.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
OR
Look at this:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/windows-7-new-sound-effects-schemes-free-download/
Maybe you can find a softer set of sounds.

[Mayuukosan]

You can change the system sounds. You can create hour own, or import a set of sounds. You can  lower the volume of each sound by used a sound editor, such as Aucacity, to reduce the level of all the important system sounds. First make a backup of each sound first.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
OR
Look at this:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/windows-7-new-sound-effects-schemes-free-download/
Maybe you can find a softer set of sounds.

Thanks! I never thought of changing the sounds using Audacity. When I get the time, I think that is what I will do.

Not sure why they suddenly became loud in the first place, though. Or why the volume control would change when one sounds.

That is not the way to solve most problems. Unless you really need to reset the hard drive.

I know, but I could not really find any other way...the drives would tell me I needed to "format before I could use it" each time I plugged them in, and the names were displaying weird in the BIOS screen. I figured, why not?

[Geek-9pm]

If the external drives no longer have any problem, you did the right thing.