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itistoday · Nov 11, 2003, 04:30 PM

I don't know if this has been posted, but I just bought these nice new sony earphones and can actually hear the sound of the act of highlighting text! I can hear the scroll bars scrolling! I can hear the window moving! I can *hear* applications launching! I'm going insane! But it's true!

And there's this distinct static sound whenever the earphones are in.

To hear it either buy MDR-J10 earphones, or, or turn your all the way up. I wasn't able to hear it before with my old earphones, but with these I can.

Anyone else experiencing this weird bug??

itistoday · Nov 11, 2003, 04:44 PM

Hmmm... well, I just booted into OS 9, and i still hear it. So it's a hardware problem... But which? The earphones or my DP 867 Mirror-drive-door? Could it be that somehow something happened and now my audio out is catching the "electrical disturbances" in the computer? Or something like that?

rjenkinson · Nov 11, 2003, 05:01 PM

you can use different earphones to determine which is the problem.

-r.

Phoenix1701 · Nov 11, 2003, 11:13 PM

It is, I believe, the latter. I experienced the same effect after plugging headphones into my MDD Power Mac. I asked about it on these very forums about a year ago, and someone told me it had to do with the fact that the headphone jack isn't adequately grounded, so it's picking up differences in potential that occur as a result of the processor working... or something like that. At any rate, yeah, it's a little annoying at times (especially as it doesn't go away if you mute the speakers -- try it), but it's easy to ignore. And hey, at least you know immediately if an application is hung; it'll scream!

Dale Sorel · Nov 11, 2003, 11:37 PM

Originally posted by itistoday:
I don't know if this has been posted, but I just bought these nice new sony earphones and can actually hear the sound of the act of highlighting text!

"Do the noises in my head bother you?"

phobos · Nov 12, 2003, 02:15 AM

I can hear those sounds even without headphones.... Really. And it was mentioned some time before that this sound at least for powerbooks comes from the graphics card. Now that I've installed panther the sounds have multipled. It's good though because you know now that most of the finder commands that require a graphics card is handled by quartz extreme.....
Try leaving a preview movie on the finder. you can hear a screeching noise coming out. If you go one level back so that the preview isn't showing the sound goes away... And this is only one of the times you can experience these sound. As you correctly stated you can have those sounds when you're highlighting text, moving a window etc.Try using a 3d program and have fun with your computer making an orchestra of these screeching noises!!!
I use cinema 4d all the time and it is infuriating to hear all these noises when you rotate your object, bridging points,zooming in etc... But with some loud music you can overcome this problem....

booboo · Nov 12, 2003, 05:46 AM

This was a known problem (along with the fan noise) with the 1st gen MDD's, - www.G4noise.com - and was Apple's first attempt at a Mac totally unsuited for pro-audio use . . .

I've never received a categorical confirmation that this problem was resolved in the rev 2 models . . .

Brass · Nov 12, 2003, 07:10 PM

I think you need to unplug yourself from the matrix.

booboo · Nov 12, 2003, 07:33 PM

Originally posted by phobos:
I can hear those sounds even without headphones.... Really. And it was mentioned some time before that this sound at least for powerbooks comes from the graphics card.

See my other post.

The noise doesn't come from the graphics card, but somewhere along the line (because of less than ideal design) noise is getting onto the audio outputs, and I suspect this is noise from the computer's digital earth getting on the analogue earth bus.

This problem is magnified when your electricity supply earth is less than ideal, and may improve significantly in another mains outlet.

Sometimes in the UK a house's mains earth is provided by a copper pipe stuck in the ground. If the ground has dried out significantly, the earth performance may be less than ideal. You could tip a bucket of water around this pipe if you can find it, and your noise problems may disappear.

Allegedly.