I still use my old MBP (15" early 2008, running OSX 10.6.8) especially to show movies to the kids. After working fine for years, all of a sudden it has developed an incredibly annoying problem. It worked fine up to yesterday, but now, any time the sound card is active, it makes these strange staticy noises over the speakers (if no headphones plugged in) or over the headphones (if any are plugged in). Noises like like you'd hear from a 1950s sci fi movie or from a crazy theremin player, with the occasional beeps and boops thrown in for good measure. Over the built-in speakers the noise is at a low-ish volume - but loud enough to be very annoying. Over the headphones (any headphones), it is very very loud, making it impossible to use the headphones. The noise seems to be coming through the sound card - not mechanical, because plugging in a headphone jack will take the noise away from the built-in speakers.
If you do anything that activates the sound card (listen to music, wath a youtube video, watch a dvd - even just hit the volume-up or volume-down button) it starts making this weird static buzzing. When the sound card is not active, no strange noises. For example, adjusting the volume seems to activate the sound card for about 30 seconds - after that time, if nothing else is trying to make sound the buzzing will cease. The crazy sounds persist as long as the sound card is active.
Is my sound card fried? The problem happens whether the MBP is plugged in or running on batteries, whether the WIFI is on or off. There are no obvious sources of interference - tried it in multiple locations. I've tried rebooting and flashing PRAM to no avail. This problem came on all of a sudden with no obvious cause - unless something strange happened that one of my kids neglected to tell me about.
If this is a known problem that has a simple fix, or if there's anything else to try, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks.
-JJ
If you do anything that activates the sound card (listen to music, wath a youtube video, watch a dvd - even just hit the volume-up or volume-down button) it starts making this weird static buzzing. When the sound card is not active, no strange noises. For example, adjusting the volume seems to activate the sound card for about 30 seconds - after that time, if nothing else is trying to make sound the buzzing will cease. The crazy sounds persist as long as the sound card is active.
Is my sound card fried? The problem happens whether the MBP is plugged in or running on batteries, whether the WIFI is on or off. There are no obvious sources of interference - tried it in multiple locations. I've tried rebooting and flashing PRAM to no avail. This problem came on all of a sudden with no obvious cause - unless something strange happened that one of my kids neglected to tell me about.
If this is a known problem that has a simple fix, or if there's anything else to try, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks.
-JJ