Macbook Sound much quieter than before

I've realised today that my Macbook's sounds volume is a great deal quieter than it previously was. Can anybody shed an explanation as to what might have happened and what solution I can take?

As a note, I have been having several problems recently with the macbook.

1)http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=299523#post299523

2)followed (and perhaps intertwined) with loads of kernel panics which are completely random. Sometimes it happens, other times its ok.

3)there have been occasions when, after I have taken out my headphones from the audio slot the computer still thinks that the headphone is still in the socket! I normally have to reboot several times to fix this.


It sounds like a definite hardware problem to me and I'm going to try and get it to a local Apple Center asap. But do you guys have any idea of the specific reason why things are going so bad?

StevenH said:

I've realised today that my Macbook's sounds volume is a great deal quieter than it previously was. Can anybody shed an explanation as to what might have happened and what solution I can take?

As a note, I have been having several problems recently with the macbook.

1)http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=299523#post299523

2)followed (and perhaps intertwined) with loads of kernel panics which are completely random. Sometimes it happens, other times its ok.

3)there have been occasions when, after I have taken out my headphones from the audio slot the computer still thinks that the headphone is still in the socket! I normally have to reboot several times to fix this.


It sounds like a definite hardware problem to me and I'm going to try and get it to a local Apple Center asap. But do you guys have any idea of the specific reason why things are going so bad?

Click to expand...

My guess is you might have a defective hard disk or a corrupted filesystem.

Obviously, this wouldn't explain the sound volume - by that I'm assuming you mean that audio is not as loud when you turn the system volume up all the way. That doesn't sound like a hardware problem to me. Have you checked to make sure that both the system volume is turned up all the way and that any volume sliders in the application you're using to generate the sound are also turned up?

Volume sliders are definitely at their max. Maybe it's just me.

Well its kinda running ok now so I'm just gonna wait to take it to an Apple Care Centre and then just see what they can do.


Thanks though m8.

Just a shot in the dark, but one other thing popped into mind. Check the Sound options in the System Preferences. Click the Output tab and check to make sure that the balance slider is in the middle and not to one or the other extreme.

Yup, the settings in sound are all correct.

But now i KNOW it isn't just me, because I was just listening to some music and suddenly problem #1 (mentioned in my orignal post) happened again. At that point, at full volume, the sound started to sound really bad. It sounded like the speakers couldn't handle the bass or treble in the music and it came out very hissy.

Also, the kernel panics are still happening even after i did a clean reinstall of the OS.


So I KNOW that there's a fault with the hardware now. The only problem is that I can't produce the systems at my will which is annoying. I dont want to have it returned to me with the same problems just because they couldn't replicate the problem!

Is there any way that I could prove that there is a hardware problem and get them to replace the faulty parts?

A few more thoughts. Have you tried resetting the PRAM? This is done by pressing and holding Command-Option-P-R during startup (right-after you turn the power on) and allowing the Apple startup tone to sound 3 times.

Is your EFI firmware up to date? Make sure you've run Software Updates and that it doesn't indicate you need to install any new updates.

Aside from that, have you tried running the Apple Hardware Test?

Tried all the above - apple hardware test returned this error:

4mem/1/40000000

Taking it to Apple Center Monday.