G4 eMac Speaker Balance Changes by Itself

[TheLastNinja]

Lately I've been noticing that my eMac's speaker balance would change on its own, seemingly at random times. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

I did a Google search and came up with this link: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090712180559AAeMJBu

Which says to try repairing disk permissions in Disk Utility and then resetting the PRAM&NVRAM.

But do I select the hard drive or the Macintosh HD volume/partition to repair the permissions? And will I need my Tiger installation disc to do this? Do I risk losing anything when I repair the permissions?

 

[MacinDan]

Repairing permissions probably won't help the balance problem. There's been a long standing bug in OS X that causes speaker balance to go out of whack when you change the volume too fast by pressing and holding the volume keys.

Do I risk losing anything when I repair the permissions?

Precious time from your life.

 

[TheLastNinja]

Thanks for the answer and info. However, I don't use the volume keys on my keyboard to change the volume [as I have a 3rd-party keyboard now since my old one stopped functioning properly] and just use the volume adjuster in the menu bar.

 

[MacinDan]

Just now I managed to throw off the balance by changing the volume several times in the menubar, so at least in my case that can definitely be the cause. I've always dealt with this by keeping the system volume on one setting and changing the output volume in individual applications.

 

[btbrossard]

My G5 at work would always go out of balance. I'd come in one day and 90% of the sound would be coming out of one side.

I was sure someone was messing with me until it started happening when I was using the computer. One minute was good, the next minute was out of whack.

You can do the maintenance you mentioned, but it probably won't do much good. If you have some free time, give it a shot.

 

[SkippyThorson]

For the longest time under Tiger, my iBook G4 would constantly adjust its own volume balance left or right. It always seemed to be a random interval, too, not a common spot.

Eventually, my F1 through F5 keys stopped working - the volume, mute, and brightness keys. I thought the iBook was reaching its end.

I upgraded it to Leopard, and suddenly, these issues vanished. Magical. I assume something under Tiger got corrupt, because Leopard was a clean install. I never had the volume issue or the dead function keys issue again.

In addition, I've never had a Mac that wasn't Tiger do the balance trick on its own. I did however know of an eMac that constantly changed its screen's size. It would sometimes be narrower, wider, too far up or down, or too off to the side, etc. That's another tangent for another time, though.