No startup chime on new Mac Pro

[ephraim909]

I received my new (not refurbished) Mac Pro on Tuesday. The first time I booted it up, I of course heard the startup chime through the wimpy built in speakers. I connected everything, including some studio monitors to the Line Out on the back of the machine. I had no problems changing everything else to play through the Line Out. However, I seemed to have lost my startup chime somehow. It doesn't play through the monitors or the internal speaker, even if I set the volume to maximum before I restart. I don't know if this is just a minor annoyance or a possible sign of deeper trouble, but either way I miss the little guy and would like to get him back. Thanks for the help.

Mikal

 

[tribe3]

I believe you have to use anything with sound/music, whatever makes a sound between startups for the chime to show up.

 

[hayduke]

I don't have a good answer about the lack of a chime at start-up, but there are a few things you can check for general system sounds and music etc.

In the System Preferences you can set Output Volume, for some reason this doesn't always seem to match the volume level set by the "speaker" keys on the keyboard. Another problem is that sometimes the "Balance" can get set to be off center. This will only be a problem for external speakers, as the internal speaker is mono. Lastly (and probably most importantly), you can also select the sounds output device. If you have selected "Line Out," but no speakers are connected then you will hear nothing. Make sure this is set to "Internal Speakers" (funny! they use plural for mono!). This may effect the start-up chime as well.

 

[ephraim909]

Tribe I'm not sure that I understand what you are saying.

I also tried resetting the SMC via the button on the board as outlined by Apple and that didn't change anything either.

I also tried unplugging my monitors from the Line Out and still no startup sound at all.

And I should mention that I have had no other problems whatsoever and everything else appears to be completely normal.

 

[Topper]

I received my new (not refurbished) Mac Pro on Tuesday. The first time I booted it up, I of course heard the startup chime through the wimpy built in speakers. I connected everything, including some studio monitors to the Line Out on the back of the machine. I had no problems changing everything else to play through the Line Out. However, I seemed to have lost my startup chime somehow. It doesn't play through the monitors or the internal speaker, even if I set the volume to maximum before I restart. I don't know if this is just a minor annoyance or a possible sign of deeper trouble, but either way I miss the little guy and would like to get him back. Thanks for the help.

Mikal

I have a friend who had the same problem with his G5.
He never was able to get the start-up chime to work.
He tried absolutely everything...reset PRAM, reset firmware, everything you can possibly think of.
It's believed that he has some kind of hardware problem.
His computer is out of warranty but it is running just fine except for the start-up chime.

With a machine like the Mac Pro, you don't want to have any problems in the future.
I'd check out Apple's web site for possible solutions.
If you have an Apple Store near by have the "genius" check-out your computer.

 

[SDAVE]

Yeah it must be a hardware problem because the chime comes on on the internal speaker BEFORE the EFI manages to boot into an OS.

 

[tag]

Personally this thread got me thinking, as I personally hate the startup sound I went looking for a way to get rid of it. I havent gotten home to try it yet, but macosxhints has this article that points to a freeware app that lets you change or mute the startup chime volume. Perhaps you could use this app to turn back on the sound of the startup chime?

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031220154651763

 

[ephraim909]

Thanks for the responses. I will try some of that when I get home. I know it can work because I definitely had it the first time I booted up which makes me think it wouldn't be hardware. I hope it is just a bug to be worked out. Like I said, no other problems so far.

 

[sblasl]

I have a Mac Pro 2.66, I have a pair of Apple's USB speakers and a pair of Edirol digital studio monitors connected via the optical/toslink port.

I have never heard the chime come out of either pair, I am thinking that Apple just is not allowing the chime to be played externally anymore. I know that on my G5, the chime could be played externally.

 

[ephraim909]

So here's the latest.

If I go into the Sound Preferences and change the output to the internal speakers, I get the startup chime on restart. However, the volume controls on my keyboard will only control the volume of the internal speakers, even after I go back into the Sound Preferences and change the output back to the Line Out. If I leave the output as the Line Out and restart, I will get the Chime through the internal speakers and then the keyboard volume controls will control the Line Out again. If I restart from there, I still get the Chime through the internal speakers, and the controls work correctly. It seems as though my problem just kinda fixed itself. I don't really know what I did, if anything, to change it. Oh well. All is well. Thanks for the help.

Mikal

 

[hayduke]

So here's the latest.

If I go into the Sound Preferences and change the output to the internal speakers, I get the startup chime on restart. However, the volume controls on my keyboard will only control the volume of the internal speakers, even after I go back into the Sound Preferences and change the output back to the Line Out. If I leave the output as the Line Out and restart, I will get the Chime through the internal speakers and then the keyboard volume controls will control the Line Out again. If I restart from there, I still get the Chime through the internal speakers, and the controls work correctly. It seems as though my problem just kinda fixed itself. I don't really know what I did, if anything, to change it. Oh well. All is well. Thanks for the help.

Mikal

I think everything is working exactly as it should then. The line-out is a fixed amplitude signal for audio pro's. This is the standard. The idea is that the signal isn't modulated and you can tweak it with the volume control on the amplifier, which is typically part of the external speakers. If you want to control the speaker volume with the keyboard you have to use the headphone jack, which kind of stinks given that it is on the front of the machine.

 

[ephraim909]

I think everything is working exactly as it should then. The line-out is a fixed amplitude signal for audio pro's. This is the standard. The idea is that the signal isn't modulated and you can tweak it with the volume control on the amplifier, which is typically part of the external speakers. If you want to control the speaker volume with the keyboard you have to use the headphone jack, which kind of stinks given that it is on the front of the machine.

Actually right now the volume keys on the keyboard are controlling the volume to the line out, which is what I wanted. For all my audio production, I run everything through an interface so it is controlled that way.

 

[tribe3]

Tribe I'm not sure that I understand what you are saying.

I also tried resetting the SMC via the button on the board as outlined by Apple and that didn't change anything either.

I also tried unplugging my monitors from the Line Out and still no startup sound at all.

And I should mention that I have had no other problems whatsoever and everything else appears to be completely normal.

I was trying to say this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302353

"Mac OS X 10.4: Startup chime doesn't play on startup:

If you wake your Mac from sleep, then shut it down or restart it before playing any audio or adjusting the volume, you won't hear the startup chime on your next startup.

Don't worry. There's nothing wrong with your Mac; it will start up normally. To ensure that the startup chime sounds on startup, simply play an audio file or adjust the system volume after waking your Mac from sleep before restarting it or shutting it down."