Performa 6400/200CD/TV/Geoport/OS 8.6

I have the original ATA drive + a 2.4GB internal Quantum SCSI HD that I transferred over from a different Performa 6400/200.

The SCSI drive had OS 8.6 on it while in the other Performa, and I've done nothing major to it since it's been in the current Mac. The IDE drive has the original OS 7.5.3.

Everything is working fine except for this one aggravating thing---
When I make "Sound" control panel adjustments on the SCSI/OS8.6 internal HD, they simply will not be remembered on subsequent restarts (too loud!!).

The original IDE/OS 7.5.3 HD has no problems "remembering" updated sound settings, so I think this rules out a bad PRam battery and my not following the right steps.

I haven't zapped the PRam yet because I'm worried it'll mess up my hard-won working Geoport modem setup.

Is it possible that since the original Sound C.P. settings were established on a different Performa 6400, that this one somehow isn't
allowed to change things???

I'm stumped.
TIA

Since you note you have a TV card, I'll guess that it's actually the TV/FM sound that's getting cranked up too loud after a reboot. This is the same problem I've seen with the TV audio on a Twentieth Anniversary Mac (aka PM 6500). The problem appeared in the upgrade to OS 8.6, and isn't present in 8.5.1 or anything prior to that. I haven't found a fix for it yet (other than resetting the TV/FM audio level before using it), but I suspect it could be done with a small INIT. It could also be addressed with a script and scripting addition to sets that sound pref (there doesn't appear to be any built-in Applescript mechanism for this). The problem isn't fixed as of OS 9.0.

If anyone has any knowledge (or better still, sample code of how to change the sound prefs at boot time I'd be interested to see them. It's an annoying enough bug that I'd write the INIT myself. Until someone does that, you might consider going back to 8.5.1 if it's a sufficiently serious issue for you.

It's frustrating that Apple never gets around to fixing these simple little issues in new OS releases.

Thanks for the info. I haven't even gotten around to using the TV tuner yet.

My problem is with the actual Sound control panel itself. It always reverts to some mysterious original setting (??invisible pref??) for the Alerts and for the Volumes.

The Volumes actually shows the TV/Video system Mute button as checked (ie it's muted), while the Built-in volume is at about half, but still way too loud. These Alerts and Volumes settings are the ones that will not stay "remembered" from one shutdown to the next, but only on the OS 8.6 SCSI internal drive.

I had the same problem recently on my new Firewire Powerbook. My Alert Sound and Volume would always revert to Simple Beep and the default volume after a shutdown. No matter how many times I changed them back, they wouldn't be saved permanently. The other day I got sick of it and deleted the Sound Preference file and zapped the PRAM with Techtool. I'm not sure which it was, but that did the trick. If you don't want to reset your PRAM, then you might try deleting the Sound preference in case it's been corrupted. Otherwise you may have to bite the bullet and zap the PRAM after all. I can't comment of the TV tuner though. Hope this helps.

[drewman]

The problem is indeed the version of MacOS software. MacOS 8.5.1 and higher mess up the volume control on reboot for PowerMac 6500 based systems including the Twentieth Anniversary Mac (which I happen to have).

A partial solution is to install the Apple Video Player 1.6.5 and its extension rather than the newest 1.7.3.

This will solve really loud settings, but the sound control panel will still forget the input it was last on.

drewman

Thanks to all for the "sound" advice.

I trashed the Sound Pref, and that allowed me to reset the volume once, and once only. The level is now "remembered" right where I want it to be, but the following bit of confusion remains:

Although I'm getting volumes and alerts just fine, the control panel shows I'm __muted__!! Obviously I'm not at "mute", but that's what it insists I've now set it at.

Go figure...

[LConnally]

I realize this is not a timely posting to this thread, but I just experienced a similar anomaly wiht a 7100/80 and System 7.5.3.

I never figured out why, and could never avoid, having the machine (this with a new PRAM batery) restart with Sound CP:Volumes:External returning to default "medium" even though I had shut down with it set to high. Perhaps this is a safety issue??

How I had to remedy this (a necessity as we were using the machine headless!) was to create a Applescript Script App that ran at startup.

And I add too, the control panel settings even behaved weirdly under the script, and a workaround was necessary. I would not set the volume to "9", until I increased it step by step. Go figure!

Here is the script from my memory.. I modified the "Sound On" Applescript that is included in the System 7.5.3 Apple Extras - Applescript - Automated Tasks folder.

on run
tell application "Finder"
set volume 2
beep
set volume 3
beep
set volume 4
beep
set volume 5
beep
set volume 6
beep
set volume 7
beep
set volume 8
beep
set volume 9
beep
end tell
end run