Vostro 1720 - Volume Control

An over zealous moderator deleted my last post, so lets try again....

Having had many Dell laptops over the years, I am used to being able to press the Function key and ANOther key to inicreas/decrease/mute the volume. The Vostro 1720 supposedly has a set of "Media Control" keys which run across the laptop above the 90-= and delete key to control the volume.

Adjusting the volume requires some 50 key presses to ramp the volume from min to max, and does not appear to work unless the application has keyboard focus.  Also, you must press the button 50 times - it does not ramp the volume the longer you hold the button. Is there any way to adjust the sensitivity of these buttons or make them work on the Master Volume control?

The only reliable way to control the volume is to click on that tiny little arrow in the task bar, find the volume icon, click it, slide the volume control where you want it., which takes far too long when your eardrums are being blasted to smithereens..