LC550 loud chime / audio crackling, no volume control

[zombieclassic]

I've rescued an LC550 from someone locally, caps don't look bad (no shininess on board) and battery didn't explode. After popping in a new battery I got it to boot, screen looks great but the audio through the built in speakers is incredibly loud. The startup chime is deafening, and there is a lot of scratchy/crackling. Volume adjustment won't work, but the brightness controls work fine.

Is this something with the logic board or the board that the speakers are connected to? Are there caps on that? I haven't torn it down to that level yet.

 

[zombieclassic]

So, i was able to get it disassembled down to the front panel board, which doesn't have any caps on it YAY! but still has the crappy audio.

and oh my god are these things fragile/brittle. was able to reassemble and power on again, so she still works but never doing that again. guess I need to get it recapped and see if that fixes the loud audio.