No Sound in Leopard - Powerbook G4

[Link2430]

I have no sound while running Leopard...everything is standard in my Powerbook except memory which is 1.5 GB. 17'' Powerbook 1.67 GHz.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some screens of my problem:

[seamusk]

This happened to me on my emac g4. Basically I had to make sure the output was set to the right output and then I had to adjust the volume in the system preferences. I'm not sure what exactly did it, but it worked.

[Link2430]

That's the problem...it's all grayed out in System Preferences. I can't adjust the volume at all. I don't know what's going on.

[seamusk]

I'm not sure then. Did you try adjusting on the sound effects panel as well? I did that. For some reason, my output device and sound effects devices were set to usb. Yours isn't though.

[Link2430]

It's grayed out there as well...I can change the alert volume, which does nothing, but I can't change the output volume.

This is irritating...

[chambers7]

I have no sound while running Leopard...everything is standard in my Powerbook except memory which is 1.5 GB. 17'' Powerbook 1.67 GHz.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here are some screens of my problem:

this is exactly the same problem i am having. first i did archive and install... then i did upgrade.... then i did erase and install... i thought after erase and install it would work, but it doesn't. when i installled, nothing was plugged into the headphone jack. nothing. for some reason though, when i plug in my speakers the volume works again. however, i have no volume on my black macbook (just got it in June).

[chambers7]

so i stayed on the line calling apple... after an hour and 15 minutes, no result... he suggested i take it to an apple certified technician.
i reset the vram... (by taking out the battery, holding down power for 10 seconds, putting in the battery, holding down command+option+p+r)and that didn't work.

my fiance' installed leopard (family pack) same disc, white macbook instead of black... her sound worked fine using archive install.

i don't have any hacks or special software on my mac. please help!

[Enterprise8875]

Ok I just had this happen to me on my 12" Powerbook. It was working great with sound since friday and I just plugged in a new external to use with time machine and now no sound. Everything is grayed out and I cant get it back.

Funny thing is I still get the start up chime.

[celebi23]

Same exact thing happened to me a few weeks ago while still running Tiger. Go into the folder Applications/Utilities & open the "Audio MIDI Setup" app. Make sure the Default & System Output options say "Built-in Output. Next, where it says "Properties for: Built-in Output" make sure the option for "Source" is "Internal Speakers". That's what fixed it for my & I'm sure I had the same problem that you're having now. Hope this helps

[WOZhipper]

If the last response did not help.

(an I am a certified Apple Tech)

Check your output jack on the side of the Macbook,IS THERE A RED LED ON INSIDE?

If that is the case the switch from alanlog to digital is stuck and the Laptop WONT have any sound no matter what you do.

You have 3 options:

take it to the genius bar and see if they can reset the switch form the inside.

Take it to warranty work (new MLB)

Use a wood tooth wodden stick ( tooth pick I Think they are called) and insert it gently on the output sound jack and press gently downwards until the red light (LED) is off, then you will have sound again.

BTW some jacks are a little bit bigger or fatter than they should be and they make the switch stuck, avoid usif that plug.

Regards

[nnkd]

I have the same problem with one additional symptom. My iTunes will not play songs. It thinks it's playing a song (play button is on play) but the song progress bar does not move.

I'm using a G4 PowerBook 12". I have Leopard and upgraded to iTunes 7.5 yesterday.

[nnkd]

Anyone know a way to fix this?? Let me know, thanks!

[kas23]

same exact thing happened to me this morning on my PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz. I tried to repair permissions, but this had no effect. Next, I re-booted, and this worked - internal speakers magically reappeared. Other people on the Apple board (a good handful of people are having this same problem) have zapped their PRAM and this has worked for them.

[Enterprise8875]

I called Apple and they told me to put in my leopard disk, boot from cd, run disk utilities, and repair disk. This did fix it for me but it happened again a few days latter and i had to repair disk again.

I hope 10.5.1 fixes this for good.

[IzzyJG99]

This just started to my iMac G5 2.1Ghz today. It seems just randomly the speakers won't be recognized. Also iTunes seems to be doing all sorts of weird things lately, too. The play/stop button needs to be pushed like 10 times before it actually stops the song.

Can we say iTunes/Quicktime problems, Kiddies?

[chambers7]

I can confirm a solution that was posted on here earlier. I took my macbook to an apple certified technician (actually two to be exact). One of them told me he had this problem as well. Here is the solution:
1. Play a song so the red light comes on.
2. Get a tooth pick and insert it into the headphone jack.
3. Push gently so the end of the tooth pick is touching the bottom inside the headphone jack.
4. take the side of the tooth pick and press it against the side of the head phone jack will still keeping the end of the tooth pick pressed on the bottom. Wiggle it around and around. Be patient with it (that's what both myself and the Apple Tech found). The important thing is to make sure the end of the tooth pick is always touching the bottom of the inside of the headphone jack. You will wiggle it around for up to 15 minutes (Usually a lot quicker) until the red light goes off.
5. Disclaimer: Your speakers will be fixed but there is the possibility that if you plug your head phones into the jack and you pull them out carelessly, you will go back to square one and have to start over.

[iSaint]

I hate to ask a simple question, but did you restart your computer?

I had this problem after 10.5.1 on my 1.67 Powerbook. I freaked a minute, restarted, and all was good! :)

[gmohr]

So I lost audio also in my PowerBook G4 1.67, 1.5Gb, not sure why.

I had no red light in the headphone jack - assuming that's where I was supposed to be looking.

Tried resetting PRAM by holding down command-option-P-R while starting up. Couldn't tell that PRAM reset, never got a second startup chime (much less a 5th) as instructions indicate. No effect on audio.

Tried restarting, intending to try resetting PRAM again. Machine would not restart - desktop cleared of all icons but never would shut down. Finally gave up waiting and shut down with power button.

Restarted again this time holding down ctrl-option-command-P-R (don't know why I held down ctrl and have no idea whether it has any effect at all). Again got no second startup chime, just one. But this time audio is back to normal.

[bernardt]

I had the same symptom ....as well as memory loss and memory just bleeding. Ran disk Utility and it cleared up but not sure why....Seems like Leopard has a myriad of common issues

[TimJim]

I have this problem on a Leopard MBP. I tried resetting PRAM, Veryifying Disk and what not, and the tooth pick thing. Nothing has worked so far. As well, i dont see any red LED light that you guys are talking about.

Anybody wanna help me out?

[OzExige]

Wow, I'm beginning think I'm not alone,
had the same problem on my iMac after installing Leopard, will try the suggestions tonight.

Thanks

[ddalledo]

Add me to the list. Exact same problem with a PowerBook G4 1,66mhz. It happen sometime, and after some reboots the sounds come back.

[dhc]

I'm taking my Macbook into to the Apple store tomorrow because of this problem. Not entirely convinced that I'd be happy with an ongoing 'fix' of 'waggling a toothpick'..

Has anyone had a permanent fix? Has the cause ever really been identified (Hardware -stuck switch/software - Leopard related)?

It's incredibly annoying..

[dhc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I'm taking my Macbook into to the Apple store tomorrow because of this problem. Not entirely convinced that I'd be happy with an ongoing 'fix' of 'waggling a toothpick'..

Has anyone had a permanent fix? Has the cause ever really been identified (Hardware -stuck switch/software - Leopard related)?

It's incredibly annoying..

for what its worth, the guys at the apple store are replacing the logic board as the audio socket is attached to it. They seemed to confirm that the issue IS caused by a switch in the socket, and is not software related. On a side note, the new Cambridge store and staff therein were excellent.

[LizKat]

I have the same problem with one additional symptom. My iTunes will not play songs. It thinks it's playing a song (play button is on play) but the song progress bar does not move.

I'm using a G4 PowerBook 12". I have Leopard and upgraded to iTunes 7.5 yesterday.

Wow, so my situation was not unique! For a minute there today I thought one of my trusty ol' G4 12" PBs, the one running Leopard 10.5.3, was trying to die with its boots on. I lost my audio on it for no apparent reason. I have no idea what triggered it because I was using the machine for awhile before I hit on a track in iTunes 7.6.2 and "nothing happened..." Earlier today I had played a few songs on the thing while loading a nano with a fresh selection of tracks from the library on that machine. The disconnect of the nano was normal and I think I played a few more songs on the powerbook before I put the machine to sleep for awhile. I am not sure it had audio when I woke it up, since the first thing I did after that was just surf the news for a few minutes.

I never had this happen before, with no audio and iTunes just pretending it was playing but no progress bar was moving. The audio icon had disappeared out of my menubar. My system profile no longer claimed that I had a Texas Instruments something or other in there for audio hardware...

Well I did a simple restart once, then a safe boot, but couldn't get audio back until I finally rebooted with a PRAM reset, then it came up with its audio working fine. Or at least it's fixed for now. I wasn't using any special software. Running a well maintained Leopard setup and surfing using Firefox 2.0.0.13 and maybe I had a text editor open, Preview, itunes, that's about it.

[gcburge]

I found this solution on an Apple forum and it worked. I have a PowerMac G4 and just upgraded to Leopard. And lost my sound output. I deleted my copy of QuickTime Player (>Applications), downloaded a new copy from Apple, and installed it directly (not using the system upgrade utility). Immediately the sound returned. Go figure.

[bond304]

i also had this problem. I did the toothpick thing except with a piece of paperclip. The light would go off in like every 20 seconds. To make the light go back on so i could do the fix i had to plug in headphones and unplug them then quickly jiggle the paperclip inside the jack. Since soo many people have this problem, i might make a video on how to fix it.

[Lazy River]

Try resetting the PRAM -- use Command-Option-P-R
(Read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 for details on the procedure)

I lost sound, no sound icon in menu bar, keyboard buttons brought up the sound level display with a "no sound" symbol, system preference sound panel sliders and buttons were greyed out and inaccessible. Symptoms were just like the screen caps shown in the original post in this thread.

Resetting PRAM solved the problem immediately.

[suremetoo]

Try resetting the PRAM -- use Command-Option-P-R
(Read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 for details on the procedure)

I lost sound, no sound icon in menu bar, keyboard buttons brought up the sound level display with a "no sound" symbol, system preference sound panel sliders and buttons were greyed out and inaccessible. Symptoms were just like the screen caps shown in the original post in this thread.

Resetting PRAM solved the problem immediately.

PowerBook G4, 1.5Ghz and Leopard here...holding down CTRL + OPTION + COMMAND + P + R keys during restart did the trick. I had no red light in the headphone jack, either. No need to do it while shutting down, I held the keys after the startup sound...hold for a few seconds and release...OS will continue to boot after you release the keys it seems.

This fixed my sound problems: no sound in icon in menu bar, sound applet in System Preferences was entirely grayed, iTunes music wouldn't play, etc. Typing all of this in so the search engines can catalog all of the symptoms for others in need!

[tomponce]

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=98259

That worked for me, but the problem keeps on coming back on my 12" PowerBook.
restart while pressing command-option-o-f (open firmware)
reset-nvram
reset-all

[bluetanta]

I've experienced this exact same thing on my 12 "powerbook.

Resetting PRAM did nothing.

Afterwards, I went into single user mode and ran 'applejack' and when I restarted the sound was back up and running. So I would suggest resetting PRAM first, then try NVRAM, and as a last resort download applejack (if you don't already have it) and run it in single user mode. Best of luck.

[madt]

I had the same problem and no intention to do something with a toothpick.
Someone has written about downloading quicktime - and reinstalling it.

I did that and at the moment sound works perfectly.

[k75]

Running PBook G4 10.4.11

Have tried all the tips:
Resetting PRAM
Resetting NVRAM
Re-installing Quicktime- though didn't have the option to do a direct install only upgrade.
No red LED

Nothing. Any help appreciated- thanks.

[akolberg]

Powerbook 15" G4 867Mhz 768meg Ram
Never had sound problems till Leopard. First did the upgrade from 10.4.11 to Leopard and the sound was fine. Upgraded to itunes 8 and Quicktime 7.5.5 and leopard 10.5.5. That is when everything went haywire. The sound seemed to come and go intermittently. Sometimes itunes would work and sometimes not and Quicktime almost never had sound(reloaded- helped for a little while). Reloaded Leopard from scratch and the sound started working again. It slowly stopped working again.
I reset the PRAM and it appears to be working again. Hopefully it lasts.

[yangzone]

No audio out of speakers or headphone jack on PB 17" 1.5GHz.

Have gone through all the usual resets: PRAM, NVRAM, PMU. 'Ditched any audio and sound preferences from both sys prefs and user prefs and then when that did not work, 'booted from external drive. Sound Preference Panel and Audio/MIDI setup correct. (No external sound devices connected.)

No Joy.

Anyone had any luck with a similar situation? My bet is on a loose connecter at sound board or bad sound board itself.

An iMic mic/headset connector gets me sound from a USB port just fine. (I believe that source might not involve the sound board.)

[terriblyjordan]

I hate to ask a simple question, but did you restart your computer?

I had this problem after 10.5.1 on my 1.67 Powerbook. I freaked a minute, restarted, and all was good! :)
Same thing I did and that's what fixed it.

[Never2L8]

I have a PowerBook G4 and just installed Leopard a couple of days ago. I too had the same problem with no sound.

A simple Restart fixed it all.

[rodrigo espinoz]

If the last response did not help.

(an I am a certified Apple Tech)

Check your output jack on the side of the Macbook,IS THERE A RED LED ON INSIDE?

If that is the case the switch from alanlog to digital is stuck and the Laptop WONT have any sound no matter what you do.

You have 3 options:

take it to the genius bar and see if they can reset the switch form the inside.

Take it to warranty work (new MLB)

Use a wood tooth wodden stick ( tooth pick I Think they are called) and insert it gently on the output sound jack and press gently downwards until the red light (LED) is off, then you will have sound again.

BTW some jacks are a little bit bigger or fatter than they should be and they make the switch stuck, avoid usif that plug.

Regards

Thanks very much for this it really helped me last nite i was listening to music on my laptop with headphones on probably something disabled it

i used the tooth pick trick and did the job you saved the day

[:Rob:]

If the last response did not help.

(an I am a certified Apple Tech)

Check your output jack on the side of the Macbook,IS THERE A RED LED ON INSIDE?

If that is the case the switch from alanlog to digital is stuck and the Laptop WONT have any sound no matter what you do.

You have 3 options:

take it to the genius bar and see if they can reset the switch form the inside.

Take it to warranty work (new MLB)

Use a wood tooth wodden stick ( tooth pick I Think they are called) and insert it gently on the output sound jack and press gently downwards until the red light (LED) is off, then you will have sound again.

BTW some jacks are a little bit bigger or fatter than they should be and they make the switch stuck, avoid usif that plug.

Regards

Great info. I had this problem and used a plastic toothpick to get the job done. Thanks againg.

[spirochete]

Hi all........ old topic but still relevant for some.......

This post is for when your late model Powerbook G4 loses its internal speakers and has a red light glowing in the sound jack, and, External headphones if plugged in, DO produce sound.

If you have tried the usual PR reset and OF flashing plus the suggested wiggling sticks in the jack socket and still 'no go'.........

There is lots of talk about complicated sockets with lots of microswitches - not so;

After seeing a number of these (usual fix is to replace the DC-In / soundboard), I decided to carefully dismantle one of these jack sockets to see what is going on in them:-

There are no tiny microswitches as such within the socket.

There are 4 metal contacts but only one is the make-break contact and that is the one visible at the 3 O'clock position nearest the opening.

Within the recess it is a horizontal 'V' shaped piece of metal and it makes/breaks on insertion of a 3.5 mm jack, by simple metal to metal contact on a thin upright obscured from (your) sight by the plastic in front of it ( i.e. that nearest the opening at 3 o'clock).

The upright is held in place by the internal moulding of the plug and is unlikely to move or bend, so the problem will almost always be with the curved contact that touches the jack plug

Reconnection between the two parts (on removal of the jack plug) relies on the tension (or 'springiness'), present within the 'V' bend in the metal contact. Movement / gap is very small (0.2mm ?), so a bad jack plug / repeated use / heavy handedness can easily deform this 'V' and prevent it re-connecting.

Sometimes it IS possible to 're-tension' the contact using a lamp/ mag glass and a thin shaped piece of wire..... POWER OFF / BATTERY OUT !

If you are into taking your Powerbook apart it IS possible to open the jack socket without removing it from the board..... but the DC-In / soundboard does need to come out first.

If you don't want to desolder joints you will need to carefully cut the shielding cover where it is held at the rear sides only (two legs) such that it comes off (Keep it).

The socket has a blue base and a grey top..... a thin flat-blade jewellers screwdriver worked into and around the seam will separate them.... (gently, bit by bit), the grey top comes off leaving ALL the contacts in and attached to the blue base.

The offending contacts will be seen at the front RH Side.

Adjust contact tension with a pair of thin pliers or tweezers.

Leave cover OFF, and reconnect board temporarily to the Mac ( use card / cloth to insulate any areas of potential short circuits...... i.e. pay attention to what you are doing!).

Fire up Mac...... if you've got it right it'll chime, if not, re-tweak.

If you are careful you can insert / remove a headphone jack to:

a) Check / ensure it stays working with a jack in / out
b) See how it operates and how simple it actually is.

Once working, power off, re-assemble jack cover,( careful - push fit - MUST be aligned squarely), tension the small piece of shield so that it grips when put back... a bit of metal tape to the next jack re-establishes shielding

This works (for me) 9 times out of 10 & takes about 45 to 60 mins.

(Also saves £150 bill )

Hope this helps someone.....

JH