Greetings and Salutations, Hello, Hallo, Konnichiwa, etc etc

I just bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop today, it uses Windows 8.1 for it's OS. It uses Realtek HD Audio. By default it sounds extremely weak and tinny at any volume level, however at the Windows Sound menu I was able to fix that by disabling all sound effects. However when I'm playing a game it goes right back to being weak and tinny (in game). I can't seem to figure out a solution on my own, so does anybody have a solution or any tips? You know...besides "Haha, you shouldn't have bought that laptop!"

All in all I think Toshiba laptops don't have the best speakers but they are very reliable laptops and the amount of performance that you get for the money made me buy a Toshiba recently.

With that being said, a reinstall or update to the latest audio drivers is advised. When you uninstall your drivers be sure to go to safe mode afterwards, run a program called Ccleaner to delete old registries.
If you have done a reinstall already, then right click on you volume icon, right click on your default speaker and select properties. Go advanced tab and enable audio enhancement. Also see or the options under exclusive mode are already checked. If they are not, check them both and see if it helps you out. If they are checked, then uncheck 'Allow application...' thing and see if it helps you out.

A majority of laptops have weak and tinny speakers. The solution is either an external speaker or wearing headphones. You could look for updated drivers from realtek, but I doubt it would help.

Try playing something like music or a YouTube video where you know how loud it is expected to be to determine whether the integrated speakers aren't particularly loud.

If it is really only games that don't have the expected volume level then there are a couple of possible causes:

It could be the Communications volume reduction feature which is detected incorrectly for some games. Open the Sound applet (mmsys.cpl), then go to the Communications tab and choose Do nothing.

Failing that it could be that you've enabled one of the Realtek sound effect modes. Open the Realtek HD Audio Manager in the Control Panel, then go to the Sound Effects tab and ensure that Environment and Equalizer are both set to <none> and Loudness Equalization is disabled.

Thanks everyone for your replies, this is the reply that worked (first I tried as well)! I forgot to set this thread as a "question", so I'll just rep you all.

I wish Logitech would still sell V20 speakers. I love mine, they are small enough to nicely fit in a laptop bag along with your laptop, but have quite nice and powerful sound considering their small-ish size. And they are USB only, ie. they get both power and the audio through one USB cable.

Not as good as e.g. my big and bulky Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II, but Logitech V20 are still so good that I sometimes use them even with my desktop PC, and have listened to music and watched movies with them too.

I've yet to hear built-in laptop speakers that I'd want to listen to at all. If I don't have external speakers with even ASUS G75VW (which is supposed to have pretty "good" built-in speakers due to being a big gaming laptop), I rather just use headphones then.

Yeah, I tried Toshiba and their speakers are not that great. I would go for either MSI or Lenovo laptops.

After the initial solution worked (disabling all effects), it for whatever reason kept reverting back to the weak tinny sound after a restart or any audio changes. I've managed to fix the entire sound issue by enabling DTS in the Realtek HD Audio Manager. However the sound is a more than a little muddy, but I'm sure with some fine tuning I'll be good to go.

I'm using headphones, an old pair of Sony headphones that are sonically great (if the audio mix is decent) and cost me $20 three years ago. I'm not sure how much longer they're going to last, does anybody here use wireless headphones, and if so, which kind and how much were they?

laptop speakers are weak generally speaking, mine has already started sounding horrible (7 years old) so i use headphone that are louder than the speaker.

but what i found out ruined my speakers is using the 400% volume while listening/watching to stuff in vlc player, many manufacturers warn against doing that

I recently bought the Corsair Vengeance 2100 headset, got it on sale for $99. I've only had it for two weeks. The surround sound is simulated, but it does sound decent. I haven't used the mic, and probably never will, but it's there if I want it and out of the way. The headphones are very comfortable and will swing either way to accommodate your weird, pineapple shaped head. The headband is comfortable and very plush. I only had one problem with it and that was to be expected. The USB receiver, the dongle, did not like being sandwiched with my wireless network adapter on two adjoining USB ports. Locating it to the other set of USB3 ports made all the problems disappear. The only half-hearted gripe I have is the sound cuts out 2 feet into my kitchen. Not a problem with the signal as it is at least 4 walls and more than 10m away.
This week I decided to get a PCIe network card for another reason, my USB sometimes did not start with windows. I would have to remove it from the USB port and plug it into another for it to be recognized. This happened before I got the headset, so it was not because of the headset that it happened. The one I linked to sounds really good, is more travel friendly, less bulky than I originally expected, and attaches to the top of your screen with a little hook. It looks like they no longer sell it. I do not ever use the speaker, as I would rather use headphones.