Max sound settings are very soft, Max battery very low

[Sayhar]

Hi everyone. So I got a custom-built notebook recently, based off've the Asus
Z96JM Chassis (http://www.rjtech.com/manual/Z96Jm.pdf)

Asus Z96JM Chassis

2GB DDR2 667 (2x1GB)

Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz 2MB Cache 800fsb

120GB SATA Hard Drive

Wireless ABG Internal

My sound is set to highest volume for amarok and for the whole notebook, but it's still very soft. How do I fix it, please?

More importantly, I have a 6-cell battery on powersaving mode, and I only get 1 hour of life from it. That doesn't seem right. How do I fix it?

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[Husse]

There may be some hardware volume control - look for
a little knob or a special button or some such - it is very easy to miss as I've done on my wife's Toshiba

[Sayhar]

Thanks. Any idea why my max battery is only 1 hour? That doesn't seem right at all to me.