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Boot up chime not working

T

tinca

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 12, 2011
37
0
England, UK
Hi there,

My mac boot up chime no longer happens for me?

I have a mid 2015 15" retina, running Yosemite.

When I boot up the laptop there is no longer the chime noise, I can get it to come back after resetting the PRAM but only once, and it mutes it afterwards.

Anyone any idea as to why? and how I can get it to return permanently?

Thanks,
tinca
 
Does your sound work OK? Can you hear sounds from the speakers at other times (playing music, watching a video?)

Do you often use headphones? Do you leave them attached?
Unplug headphones. Then, adjust your volume to mid level.
Shut down your Macbook, so it is powered off.
press and release the power button. Do you get a boot chime sound?
If not, does your sound work (play music or watch video, anything that should make sound.
If you look inside the headphone port, do you see a red light?
Insert and remove the headphones a few times. Maybe you can get that light to go out.
 
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Does your sound work OK? Can you hear sounds from the speakers at other times (playing music, watching a video?)

Yes, everything is as it should be, play music, stream videos with sound etc no problem.

Do you often use headphones? Do you leave them attached?

I sometimes use headphones, but they are never attached when I shutdown / bootup the laptop.

Unplug headphones. Then, adjust your volume to mid level.
Shut down your Macbook, so it is powered off.
press and release the power button. Do you get a boot chime sound?

Ok, I can now hear the chime when my speakers aren't plugged in. However it never used to matter if the speakers were plugged in or not? Since the chime only uses the internal speakers. Why has this happened do you think? How can I get it back the way it was?

If you look inside the headphone port, do you see a red light?

No red light. My headphone port is always plugged into my speakers, it only gets removed when I occasionally use my headphones.



Thanks for your time, it's very much appreciated.
 
Speakers? I would expect that you should hear the boot chime through the external speakers. Depends on the Mac model.
My mini, for example, always sounds the boot chime through the internal speaker.
My MacBook does not make any sound through the internal speakers, even the boot chime, if the external speakers are plugged in.
In your case, the same port is used for either speakers, or headphones, so you almost always have "something" plugged in there.
But, the fact that your sound works when you want it to work, makes the presence or absence of the boot chime a little less pressing, unless you are having some other problems. For example, no boot chime can often mean that sound is not working at all (you say your sound is OK), or that some other problems happen, such as no boot, freezes during boot, no video, errors at boot that prevent booting - basically real problems. You are not really having any problems, with the exception of a boot chime that works every time. I suspect that your boot chime simply sounds through whatever is the active audio path - so the internal speakers are bypassed when you plug in your external speakers, or headphones.
 
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The chime has never been played through external speakers, always from the internal.

I just tried to boot up with them plugged in and the chime came from internal speakers just like before, no idea what I changed to make it go back to how it used to?
 
Even so, I don't think that indicates any serious (computer life threatening) problem, other than an odd mystery.

So, you have a laptop that you could sleep, rather than shut down.
How often would you restart, other than for something like reinstalls?
You would never notice the presence (or absence) of the boot chime, if you rarely restart.
I often get several weeks between restarts. I have a Mac in the back room that hasn't restarted in nearly two years. Uptime isn't that important, but that Mac has been on 542 days since the last boot. It sometimes sits sleeping for a week or more, gets used for mail list jobs as the only task.
 
I turn mine off everyday, when not in use.

I realise it's not going to be a huge problem, was just curious as to why it has happened.
 
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