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OK, I've figured out what the problem was: it turns out that when external speakers are plugged in to the MacBook, it's only possible to change the volume level of the external speakers while the chime sound always comes from the internal speakers.

What I did was to unplug the speakers, mute the the volume, then plug in the speakers again. Now there's no chime sound on startup and I didn't need to use any 3rd party app to do that.

Thanks again for the replies!

OP delivers.
 
I've been looking for a working solution myself since Lion since then the startupsound.prefpane did not work anymore.

People who are saying "just use the sleep function" can simply **** off, many just want a clean restart and a clean shutdown at night. Plus it saves energy.

The others who are saying it's a diagnostic sound, why don't they just let the sound play if something is wrong instead of playing it every time whenever everything is fine. It's just plain stupid and annoying. It's also a sign for when you can press buttons, but just press the desired button 1-2 seconds after you pressed the startup button, it will work too. Plus the sound is about the same time your screen goes blank.

Always unplugging my headphones and adjusting the volume isn't much work, but I tend to forget and still, this shouldn't be the case.
 
If the OP doesn't know about the Sleep function he should use it but I still think a solution to this would be helpful. If you have a Mac that has an SSD in it the start up/shut down times are ridiculously fast. Because of that I find myself shutting down the Mac more because it saves the battery a bit more. This is helpful when traveling and wanting to conserve juice.

It used to be that you could hold down the mute button when powering up but that doesn't work anymore.

Really? I would think that the power for shutdown/startup would be more than the loss from sleeping.
 
LOL at all the people who say to use sleep.

I heard sleep was really low power.. I guess not. I have a rMBP and I was at like 97% battery power and put it to sleep at the hotel and went to bed. When I used it again it was down to 75%. Really wished I just shut down and I will no longer be using the sleep.
 
LOL at all the people who say to use sleep.

I heard sleep was really low power.. I guess not. I have a rMBP and I was at like 97% battery power and put it to sleep at the hotel and went to bed. When I used it again it was down to 75%. Really wished I just shut down and I will no longer be using the sleep.

Then something is wrong, normally sleep uses 1% battery for one hour of sleep, unless you slept for 22 hours, it should not go down that fast. My 2004 iBook and 2008 MacBook and 2009 MacBook Pro, all having different battery capacities, all used only 1% battery for one hour of sleep.

But then again, maybe I had defective Macs, thus I use sleep.

PS: My late 2008 MacBook Pro had the error of using 3% battery for one of sleep, though it was remedied with a firmware update.
 
LOL at all the people who say to use sleep.

I heard sleep was really low power.. I guess not. I have a rMBP and I was at like 97% battery power and put it to sleep at the hotel and went to bed. When I used it again it was down to 75%. Really wished I just shut down and I will no longer be using the sleep.


lol, You should get your macbook checked.
 
How about just plugging a 1/8" headphone jack of some sort on start up if you're trying to be stealthy. Like this?

Image

This is the only way. I looked into this some time back and these is no way to stop the sound other than using a audio dongle.
 
This is the only way. I looked into this some time back and these is no way to stop the sound other than using a audio dongle.

As I mentioned earlier, this method worked for me. The great thing about it is that you can leave your audio level at whatever you want and after the restart/power on it goes back to it's previous setting. You just have to be comfortable working in the Terminal.
 
Just upgraded to ML. Using StartNinja to disable the startup chime. Worked for me.
 
And? It is still a valid reply. Many people I know, who switched to Mac OS X, shut their Macs down all the time, not knowing of the SLEEP feature, because Windows' sleep feature was a bit crap.
(...) So what the ****...

No reason for profanity here. The OP asks which rain coat to use, and you tell him to stay inside. Frankly, that is a little annoying, because you do not acknowledge that the OP's needs might be different from your own.

There are many reasons why someone might need to cold-boot their Macbook: having run out of juice on the train or plane, crashing MacOS, etc. Then they find themselves in a lecture or conference and are forced to treat everyone in the room to the annoying chime. Your mileage may vary, but the OP has stated a very valid problem, and your answer was not helpful.

BTW, there was never, ever, a single instance in my life where I found the sound of the startup chime useful. If Apple wants to give me diagnostics, it should do so when something goes wrong, not when it goes as expected, and it should do so without disturbing others.
 
Why Disable The Start Up Sound

I thought I would chime-in and add a comment as to why someone would want to get rid of the sound.

I’m a live in health care provider taking care of the infirmed having to stay in the same room with them for prolonged periods of time; it disrupt their tranquility (the start up sound) not to mention all the clicking with the mouse,

there are also silent clicking mouse’s available online to…
 
Auto-Mute works

Thanks to contributor RKO! Auto-Mute works! And thanks to the developer of Auto-Mute!

I had recently installed Mountain Lion on my iMac (I skipped Lion and was using Snow Leopard) and found that the StartupSound prefPane, which had worked so well, no longer does. I came here to find a solution, and I found it.

Thanks again!
 
And? It is still a valid reply. Many people I know, who switched to Mac OS X, shut their Macs down all the time, not knowing of the SLEEP feature, because Windows' sleep feature was a bit crap. When I showed them Mac OS X' sleep function, they changed their behaviour.
Of course I could link to another tidbit of software, but sometimes a change of behaviour brings new light.

In a not-at-all malicious way (and though I'd hate to derail the thread further)... why would you say the Mac sleep function is any better than a Windows sleep?

I hardly ever put my Mac to 'sleep' as I'm paranoid it's not finished what it's doing by the time I close the lid and put it in my bag. I know Apple say "As soon as the light pulsates, the HDD heads have stopped..." and blah. But I don't believe it. Your comment has me intrigued.
 
This one worked for me and my new 11.6" MacBook Air.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35207/auto-mute

What it appears to do is mute you system sound, like a super mute button, just before it shuts down when you tell it to shut down or restart. Then, when it starts back up, everything is still muted. So you need that key stroke, 'comm+F10', that the app provides for you. So you can use it when you log back in. This is perfect if you go to the library or computer lab to do collage classes without family distractions.

-----------Edited-----------

Plus, it is useful to shut your computer down sometimes, because when you are going from home to the library, to the computer lab, to class, back to the computer lab, to another class, to another class, and then back home, you need to be able to shut your computer down before you put it in your backpack or computer bag every time, because there is no venting in a bag. Just because it is running on low power doesn't mean it doesn't need the ability to cool down. I almost never turn off my family computer, our iMac, but I shut my Air down a lot. It gets a chance to sleep every night when I leave it on but close it.
 
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Just because it is running on low power doesn't mean it doesn't need the ability to cool down.

When your MacBook Air is sleeping it is generating nearly zero heat. It doesn't need ventiliation.

*edit* if it is generating a noticeable amount of heat, there is something wrong with your computer.
 
When your MacBook Air is sleeping it is generating nearly zero heat. It doesn't need ventiliation.

*edit* if it is generating a noticeable amount of heat, there is something wrong with your computer.

Well, thanks to the flash drive that my computer uses for storage, it starts up and shuts down REALLY fast; it actually starts up faster than shuts down. So it is no big deal to me to turn it off before it goes into that bag. I feel safer with it off when the vent is blocked by the fabric of my bag.
 
Turning volume down completely.

Doesn't work for me on a 2010 MBP. Even manually muting the sound before shutdown doesn't work.

Try turning volume down completely before each shut down.

*Did you know*
Turning your computer off saves more on electrical bills than leaving it on sleep.

I save over 45 dollars each month. That extra cash goes into my savings.
 
Well, thanks to the flash drive that my computer uses for storage, it starts up and shuts down REALLY fast; it actually starts up faster than shuts down. So it is no big deal to me to turn it off before it goes into that bag. I feel safer with it off when the vent is blocked by the fabric of my bag.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with shutting your computer down every time you put it away. But your reason for doing it seems flawed to me. There is nothing going into or coming out of the vent when it is sleeping. The fans don't even turn on. The computer makes essentially no heat in a sleep state(unless it is charging, but it isn't charging in your bag). Even if the RAM was active, it doesn't get that hot, that's why most RAM doesn't need any kind of active cooling.
 
For the record:

I have tried every single link, tweak and suggestion in this thread to no avail. Still wake up the neighbor's dogs when I startup.

Yeah, I would "sleep" instead but I need every bit of battery juice between stops throughout the day.
 
I found this somewhere on here, IIRC. This tweak works for me on a 2010 MBP running Lion, a 2011 MBA running Mountain Lion and a 2012 rMBP running Mountain Lion. Just make sure you follow the instructions *exactly*...




Re: disable start up sound
Jul 28, 2011 1:01 AM (in response to maximilian Jehuda Izchak)
I've found another solution how to disable the startup sound. It also works on Lion - at least for me.
There is some terminal stuff to do, but it's worth it imo ;-)

Ok here we go:

1. Login as administrator and open a terminal window

2. Create scriptfile for muting
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

3. Enter this as content, when done press control+O to save and control+X to exit:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'

4. Create scriptfile for unmuting
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

5. Enter this as content, when done press control+O to save and control+X to exit:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'

6. Make both files executable:
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

7. Check if any hooks already exist (these will be overwritten, so make sure it is OK for you)
sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

8. Add hooks for muting
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

Notes:
- /Library/Scripts/ is the location of the scripts, I used /Library/Scripts/
- you can skip the unmuting loginhook (i.e. each logout will silence your machine), but I like it this way because I always have sound available exactly at the volume level I set last time
- root has to be the owner of the script files - running an editor from command line with sudo is the easiest way to achieve that (otherwise you need to chown)
- to delete the hooks, use the following:
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook
 
For those searching the internet to mute, disable, control the startup sound try:


or​

I found this somewhere on here, IIRC. This tweak works for me on a 2010 MBP running Lion, a 2011 MBA running Mountain Lion and a 2012 rMBP running Mountain Lion. Just make sure you follow the instructions *exactly*...


Re: disable start up sound
Jul 28, 2011 1:01 AM (in response to maximilian Jehuda Izchak)
I've found another solution how to disable the startup sound. It also works on Lion - at least for me.
There is some terminal stuff to do, but it's worth it imo ;-)

Ok here we go:

1. Login as administrator and open a terminal window

2. Create scriptfile for muting
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

3. Enter this as content, when done press control+O to save and control+X to exit:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'

4. Create scriptfile for unmuting
sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

5. Enter this as content, when done press control+O to save and control+X to exit:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'

6. Make both files executable:
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh
sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

7. Check if any hooks already exist (these will be overwritten, so make sure it is OK for you)
sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

8. Add hooks for muting
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

Notes:
- /Library/Scripts/ is the location of the scripts, I used /Library/Scripts/
- you can skip the unmuting loginhook (i.e. each logout will silence your machine), but I like it this way because I always have sound available exactly at the volume level I set last time
- root has to be the owner of the script files - running an editor from command line with sudo is the easiest way to achieve that (otherwise you need to chown)
- to delete the hooks, use the following:
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

If that doesn't work try the shareware program 'Cocktail' from Maintain as found here:


Cocktail's features are arranged into five categories (Disks, System, Files, Network, and Interface) that helps you manage various aspects of your computer. If you click on 'System' as displayed at the above site, you see from the list that it will "Disable startup sound."
 
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You guys do know that if you hold the mute button while you power it on (until the apple logo), it wont chime?
 
Try turning volume down completely before each shut down.

*Did you know*
Turning your computer off saves more on electrical bills than leaving it on sleep.

I save over 45 dollars each month. That extra cash goes into my savings.

$45 a month to run your Mac? That can't be right, can it?
 
RE: kWh costs...

$45 a month to run your Mac? That can't be right, can it?

Hi The Monkey,

Let's perform a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation to see what the maximum possible cost would be, shall we?

Let's say that the MBP uses 85W of power (the AC power brick rating), 24 hours a day, for 30 days. The electric power used certainly must be less than this, and most likely is much less than this, but we are out to calculate the maximum amount. The highest price for residential electric power in the USA is currently $0.36/kWh, the average price is $0.12/kWh. Using these numbers we compute:

(85W x 24h/d x 30d/month / 1000W/kW) x $0.36/kWh = $22.03/month

(85W x 24h/d x 30d/month / 1000W/kW) x $0.12/kWh = $7.34/month

So, in Hawaii running a MBP at full steam 24/7 (I think this is impossible, actually, as I don't believe the MBP ever pulls a full 85W, but we are calculating the maximum possible cost) would cost $22/month, while the average residential electric bill would be $7.34/month.

Now these are maximum costs, calculated assuming the computer is pulling full power at 85W 24/7 for 30 days. The difference between the power used during sleep mode and the zero power used if it is turned off is, of course, much lower than these maximum costs. So I believe The Monkey's comment is valid.

Switon
 
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