G4 Cube HK USB Speakers Dead

[KyriakosCY]

Hi Guys,

I hope somebody can help me out.. I have a set of USB Harman Kardon Speakers that came with one of my G4 Cubes that have suddenly stopped working. They were working fine and then whilst troubleshooting another cube that has a broken usb port they stopped working. I am not sure if I accidentally plugged them into the broken port but I do not think so.. I also had a keyboard and mouse attached that still work perfectly... I have another 2 working cubes and they do not work on those either, and my other set of speakers work with all 3 cubes..

Maybe somebody can shed some light onto the situation as I am a bit reluctant to tear them apart.. They are mint and the black rings are still perfect..

Thanks in advance,

Kyriakos

 

[IPalindromeI]

Do they work on machines other than cubes? Afaik they should use a USB audio standard.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

But they require 2.1A instead of 500mA, so they don't.

My guess is there's an issue in the little box inline, you may have fried something if you plugged it in backwards.

 

[KyriakosCY]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.. I felt brave earlier and I took the "little box" apart.. I managed it without cracking anything which was great.. I am attaching some pics if you could possibly tell me which parts to check if they have been fried. When any of the cubes are asleep and I plugin the usb of the non-working speakers it wakes up the cube yet they are not detected and no audio device is available.. Might this be due to a short etc..?

 

[Macdrone]

Caaaappppssss!!

They are old enough. Remove and replace.

Cheap, easy enough from the look of it.

 

[KyriakosCY]

Thanks for the tip Macdrone, do you think if the caps have been fried/damaged from a short etc they may be the culprit for the speakers not being recognised..?

 

[Macdrone]

Well the question is would the caps inside the cube be an issue also. Since the speakers take full advantage from all the power from the port its suspect also.

If you had a turtle beach audio USB dongle it's supported by Mac os and needs no power and you would have a mini jack for headphones or a regular speaker set.

Did you go to apple system profiler and see if the speakers showed up in the USB tree? How about the sound control panel? If it sees it may just be an issue with that board or a chip on it.

 

[techknight]

I doubt the caps have anything to do with whats going on here. It appears this is using the ever so popular tripath class-D audio stage.

They pull some serious current at high volume. Check for any in line fuses for opens on the USB port itself, and where it comes in at on that box. Check the usb cable for breaks. Thats a high current so anything is possible.

If everything check out there, then your USB audio controller on the PCB has died.

 

[Macdrone]

I found my amigo II by turtle beach dongle that I used before I got my cube orb speakers if you want to borrow it let me know.

 

[KyriakosCY]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I will try and get my electronics guy to have a look at them in order for him to try and fix them. He mentioned that if he could also disassemble the working ones he could then compare the currents to see what has blown etc..

Macdrone, thanks for the offer but I believe I am quite far away from you

 

[Macdrone]

The adapter is about as big as two flash drives so just in case.