One of the great things about computers – Windows computers in general, especially, from what I’ve read – is their eminent configurability. But that can also make them pretty frustrating at times. When you talk about volume vis-à-vis a computer, it helps to know what volume are you talking about? Most systems have three main sources for sound: – the system itself; that is, the beeps and boops that the system makes during startup and routine operation, as well as software prompts to indicate completion of various tasks, or failure due to various error conditions; – media sounds, such as we hear in YouTube videos, CD recordings and the like, and – communication sounds for devices that we use to communicate directly with others via computer, including Skype and other such software. Each of those sound sources can be independently configured. In addition to the source of sounds, the playback of the sound can be as varied as any device you can connect to the computer: internal speakers, external plug-in speakers; Bluetooth headphones and speakers and whatever other device you can think of and recognizably wire / connect to the system. And user volume controls also vary widely: Some desktop keyboards have built-in volume switches, which can be handy if your plug-n-play keyboard is recognized (and supported) by the system and you have the correct drivers correctly installed. This all pre-supposes that all of the hardware itself is working: the speaker/s, headphones or buds, the wiring jack and connection system (including the wire), whether wired or Bluetooth, the switches to control the sound, whether hardware or software “buttons” on screen, etc. So… WHAT volume icon, for what sound? If there’s a screen icon that is “refusing to get turned on” then it sounds like there’s some kind of interface or control problem, and a configuration needs to be set or reset to enable that. The failure of the screen icon indicates an underlying setup issue of some sort. Personally, I like AutoHotKeys, where I have written a pair of simple commands to interface with my system at a very basic level which enables me to increase or decrease any sound volume by a specified amount every time I hit a specified pair of keys. But that only works because the rest of the system already works. It wouldn’t fix a problem where the sound simply wouldn’t come on.