Recording volume increases mysteriously

I have a Creative AudioPCI card in a Windows XP machine that seems to be acting up. Volume levels will be fine for recording, but when I stop recording and then listen to what was recorded, if I start recording again the input volume has increased and the new recording sounds loud and distorted. The actual position of the slider on Windows Volume Control does not move, and if I move it just slightly up or down and then back to the original level, the input volume gets restored to its original, non-distorted level -- until, of course I play something again and the cycle continues. Any thoughts?

 

I had a similar problem a while back, to the best of my memory I needed to reinstall the sound drivers and volume software (if present). Or better still , maybe get updated drivers and sotware.
On that thought, if you do have audio software for your card you may find an option in there to auto level sounds. But a reinstall would be my starting place.

I'm sorry this is a little vague, I just saw you had no replies and thought I'd mention what I did.
It was quite a while ago.

 

I have uninstalled, reinstalled, downloaded new drivers, all to no avail. As a workaround, I tried to set things up so I could record on the Creative card and play back through the onboard sound card. But I could not get anything to play through the onboard, even after updating its driver and checking all the Windows volume controls.