Anybody know of a fast sound kill switch?

[johnnyb58]

I just upgraded to Win10 and the volume control is too hard to mute. For some reason commercials are blasting twice as loud as the regular news casts. What is really weird is that I have no volume control during the commercials and not so sure if that’s by design in Windows10. I’m using Firefox, but I don’t believe that has anything to do with it.

I may have to find a quick disconnect switch for the speaker wires if I can’t do it digitally. I sometimes watch news videos on the computer during the night when I can’t sleep and the sound is so loud that it wakes everybody up.

I use to be able to click on the sound button on the task bar in Win7 to mute it and that doesn't work anymore. I don't know but maybe there is a setting for it someplace.

 

[Shlouski]

I guess headphones aren't the solution because they still deafen you. Depending on your keyboard you may have sound hotkeys and many keyboards which don't use separate keys will use the F keys + the FN key, on all of mine is seems mute is the FN + F6 keys.

FN key looks like this:

 

[johnnyb58]

Aw! I didn't even think of the keyboard. When it happens I'm usually in complete panic mode and the first thing I think of is closing Firefox, but the sound is still blaring a few seconds even after the window closes.
I just looked at my HP keyboard and sure enough there is a mute button and I guess I have to paint the key red or something so I can find it quickly. It seems to me I saw replacement color coded keys some where and I'll have to do a search to see if I can find them.
Thanks Shlouski

 

[Shlouski]

Aw! I didn't even think of the keyboard. When it happens I'm usually in complete panic mode and the first thing I think of is closing Firefox, but the sound is still blaring a few seconds even after the window closes.
I just looked at my HP keyboard and sure enough there is a mute button and I guess I have to paint the key red or something so I can find it quickly. It seems to me I saw replacement color coded keys some where and I'll have to do a search to see if I can find them.
Thanks Shlouski

I know this feeling 'OMG OMG TURN IT OFF'
It happens to me on youtube a lot, there I am relaxed watching a documentary then all of a sudden the ads come on and I swear they are at like 50% extra volume. I think its made worse by me living in spain, so of course the ads are in spanish and the spanish tend to have loud booming voices, if you don't believe me then go watch one .

 

[johnnyb58]

I’m a little embarrassed about not thinking of the keyboard because my daughter has told me at least twice to press the keyboard button when it happened while she was watching TV. I haven’t had this keyboard very long and none of my other keyboards had buttons for sound.
Thanks again