I think my sound card broke :(

[peetree]

a couple hours ago i was using my powerbook when all of a sudden the screen went black. the only way to turn get the screen back on and the laptop off, was to remove the battery and plug the charger in.

now that it's on, it appears the laptop is not recognizing any sort of sound card. no songs play in itunes, error when opening a quicktime, and in my sound preferences the output, input fields are both blank!!!

i'm scared sh**less as i've had this laptop only a month and was working on a video project due in a week one in which sound is highly required

as far as hardware, i added a 3rd party 1gb stick of ram myself- is this an issue anyone's heard of before ? if i was on a pc i'd just download some new drivers or something

 

[Blackheart]

For starters, I'd recommend taking out the 3rd party RAM. There aren't driver issues with it, you can just be unlucky and get bad RAM.

 

[Rod Rod]

it appears the laptop is not recognizing any sort of sound card. no songs play in itunes, error when opening a quicktime, and in my sound preferences the output, input fields are both blank!!!

A few reboots and checking Applications-Utilities-Audio Midi Setup might get it back. Also, run Disk Utility and click "repair permissions," and get Mac Janitor (from versiontracker.com) to run the maintenance scripts.

 

[peetree]

update:

i tried all the listed stuff above, and unfortunately none of it helped. i even tried resetting the pvram and doing a hardware scan with the osx disc, nothing showed up wrong or got fixed.

whats weird is when i hit the volume up and down keys on my keyboard nothing happens onscreen. when i tried opening that midi program in utilities it unexpectedly quit repeatedly when trying to load

if i call apple iCare will they give me crap since installed 3rd party ram (which doesnt seem to be the problem)?

 

[Blackheart]

update:

i tried all the listed stuff above, and unfortunately none of it helped. i even tried resetting the pvram and doing a hardware scan with the osx disc, nothing showed up wrong or got fixed.

whats weird is when i hit the volume up and down keys on my keyboard nothing happens onscreen. when i tried opening that midi program in utilities it unexpectedly quit repeatedly when trying to load

if i call apple iCare will they give me crap since installed 3rd party ram (which doesnt seem to be the problem)?

FYI - it's not "iCare", it's AppleCare

I'd go ahead and give Apple a call, they won't give you any trouble for having 3rd party RAM. However, to simplify the problem for them, I wouldn't even bother mentioning it.

 

[Sun Baked]

Remove the 3rd party ram.

Reset the PMU, run Repair Permission from the HD, and run fsck and/or Disk First aid.

Either the PMU is messed up, permissions screwed, or a file/catalog error is getting you.

 

[peetree]

ill try all that now ^ and if it doesn't work im def calling apple care tomorrow morning

i'm really hoping this isn't a hardware issue i can't afford to send out my powerbook is there a such thing as a usb sound card i could acquire to temporarily override my internal one so i can use my sound until i can afford to send this out at an appropriate time to be fixed (if need be)

edit: oh ive forgot to mention that throughout this whole thing that when i boot up the laptop i get that boot up noise which plays through my speakers. i don't know if that has anything to do with the sound card or plays some other way (like on a pc you get beeps and bops straight from bios or something)

 

[peetree]

PMU rese the clock, no other physical changes
fsck found error and fixed it, i ran it until it found no others didn't fix sound
disk utility permission repair found couple errors and fixed them, but i think they were irrelevent

wonder w/apple will have me try, hopefully i can fix this

 

[Xeem]

i'm really hoping this isn't a hardware issue i can't afford to send out my powerbook is there a such thing as a usb sound card i could acquire to temporarily override my internal one so i can use my sound until i can afford to send this out at an appropriate time to be fixed (if need be)

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=207&product=154

I use a Sound Blaster MP3+ on my Titanium Powerbook. Although Creative doesn't claim to have Mac support, all inputs (1/8" stereo, RCA stereo, optical S/PDIF) and outputs (also 1/8" stereo, RCA stereo, and optical S/PDIF) are automatically detected and work great in PANTHER. I know it only worked partially (just headphone out, I think) in Jaguar and I have no idea how Tiger will affect it. It isn't the best USB card out there, but sound quality is better than my G4 Powerbook 400's onboard, although maybe not as good as yours. Also, it is only 2 channel, despite S/PDIF; the optical ports are only there for a better quality stereo signal. Still, it is a pretty cheap ($30-40) plug and play option with decent sound quality, a pretty good number of inputs/outputs, and it is fairly easily available (I bought mine at the closest Wal-Mart because my PC sound card died and I needed a quick fix for a LAN).

 

[peetree]

the guy from apple care had me try one other thing then all the other things i'd tried and that was a firmware reset which didn't help.

DHL is delivering a box tomorrow so i can send my powerbook to apple. i'm also getting tiger tomorrow night so i'm going to install it before i send it out on wednesday to see if that fixes anything.

if i can get this laptop back by next wednesday and its fixed i'll be a fairly happy customer and be extending my apple care to 3 years for sure!