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Wee · Mar 20, 2007, 06:55 PM

hello,
can you tell me how can i turn off that sound which is played when the mac is turned on? i open my mac sometimes late at night and that can be irritating to others.

thanks in advance.

Chuckit · Mar 20, 2007, 07:03 PM

Mute the sound or plug in headphones.

fisherKing · Mar 20, 2007, 07:11 PM

you can also get a simple plug for the headphone jack at radio shack.
or look on versiontracker.com, there are some apps that will mute the startup sound...

cgc · Mar 20, 2007, 08:36 PM

There's a program that I used a long time ago on my Sawtooth and it's still muted on startup. Not sure the same...I'll look around.

cgc · Mar 20, 2007, 08:37 PM

That was easy...I think this is it.

simonm · Mar 21, 2007, 12:07 PM

Any way to change the sound with firmware? It's starting to get a bit tired don't you think...10 years at least!

fisherKing · Mar 21, 2007, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by simonm

Any way to change the sound with firmware? It's starting to get a bit tired don't you think...10 years at least!

i agree a new sound would be welcome; apple has changed the logo, the company name...why not the startup sound?
but it's also...there for a reason, useful sometimes when troubleshooting (or say, "zapping" the pram)...

arcticmac · Mar 22, 2007, 12:44 AM

I imagine the particular sound is used because it is fairly easy to fit in a small bit of memory on a ROM chip someplace that only has like 2K or so. The image on the other hand is stored on the HD, so wouldn't have to be too small (except because of the way the bootloader is written it's limited to like 64K I think)

- - e r i k - - · Mar 22, 2007, 04:35 AM

… or you can do like any sensible individual would do and use Sleep instead of turning your mac on and off.

msuper69 · Mar 22, 2007, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by simonm

Any way to change the sound with firmware? It's starting to get a bit tired don't you think...10 years at least!

I disagree. Every time I hear it I think "I'm sooo glad I discovered the Mac". I find it comforting and reassuring. Of course these days, with OS X, I rarely restart any of my Macs so I rarely hear it.

Person Man · Mar 22, 2007, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

… or you can do like any sensible individual would do and use Sleep instead of turning your mac on and off.

Please don't imply that people who don't use Sleep aren't sensible.

voodoo · Mar 22, 2007, 09:48 AM

I liked the Quadra sound much more than the current PPC sound. It was more dramatic. My all time favorite is the MacPlus startup beep. It was just charming.

V

Big Mac · Mar 22, 2007, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by arcticmac

I imagine the particular sound is used because it is fairly easy to fit in a small bit of memory on a ROM chip someplace that only has like 2K or so. The image on the other hand is stored on the HD, so wouldn't have to be too small (except because of the way the bootloader is written it's limited to like 64K I think)

I don't think there have been real ROM chips in Macs since we moved to New World architecture. And I doubt EFI is 64K - we're not talking about BIOS here.

Frugle · Mar 22, 2007, 11:09 AM

I donn't think the headphone thing works... Last i checked, on my macbook specifically, it sounds out of the speakers at full blast no matter if I have headphones plugged in, or volume turned down (now I think if I mute before I shut down it doesn't sound)

- - e r i k - - · Mar 22, 2007, 10:32 PM

Originally Posted by Person Man

Please don't imply that people who don't use Sleep aren't sensible.

That was a pretty clear implication there.

Person Man · Mar 22, 2007, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

That was a pretty clear implication there.

I know, but you can't just assume that people who don't use Sleep aren't sensible.

awaspaas · Mar 22, 2007, 11:46 PM

Originally Posted by Person Man

I know, but you can't just assume that people who don't use Sleep aren't sensible.

I can. They aren't sensible.

silverflyer · Mar 24, 2007, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by awaspaas

I can. They aren't sensible.

Why are they not sensible? I shut down all the time.

arcticmac · Mar 25, 2007, 12:23 AM

reasons not to shut down:
1. waking from sleep is WAY faster
2. it's better for the electronics not to go through the dramatic temperature cycle involved in a cold start unless it's going to be a fairly long time anyhow...
3. the computer uses like 2W asleep vs like 1.5 or 1W off, which means the power usage difference is minimal. The possible exception is XServes (which don't matter since they're virtually always on) and MacPros which can have lots of junk inside and are spec'ed at "<13W" sleep and "<2W" off. Unless you've added every possible accessory, sleep is probably like 3W, not 13.

The point being that I usually sleep my machine unless I intend to be away for more than 48 hours (often even up to 72 hours).

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I don't think there have been real ROM chips in Macs since we moved to New World architecture. And I doubt EFI is 64K - we're not talking about BIOS here.

As far as that goes, I'll bet you there's still SOME ROM in there someplace. you're correct that since NewWorld, most of it has moved off of ROM, but there's still gotta be some ROM that tells it how to read that. And yes, I know we're not talking about BIOS. but you apparently haven't picked over the boot code - it's clearly written out in the code that there's a (here I'll even look it up for you) limit to 64K: see:

// The original data was 16K in size (128x128) and would make the booter
// cross a 64K segment boundary. boot0 cannot load more than 127 sectors
// without changes. To eiminate that complexity, the data was run length
// encoded to save space. The reduced size is 1372 bytes.

or at least, that's the comment in the darwin source code - presumably the same applies to boot.efi, since the data in question is RLE in it as well - although I suppose it could be that someone was just lazy.

Big Mac · Mar 25, 2007, 01:26 PM

There isn't a great reason for regularly powering down rather than sleeping, but some do it as a force of habit. On the other hand, excessive sleeping may be as bad as excessive shutdowns as far as thermal changes go.

Regarding ROM code, I defer to your knowledge, arcticmac. You have definitely done a lot more research than I have.

mfbernstein · 04:06 PM

There's a prefpane called Startup Sound which allows you to adjust the on sound independent of everything else.

cgc · Mar 26, 2007, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by mfbernstein

There's a prefpane called Startup Sound which allows you to adjust the on sound independent of everything else.

Yeah, that's the prefpane I mentioned Mar 20. There is no way to change the sound.