G4: Fighting a Losing Battle

[iMac600]

Very ironic, I was just talking to LCGuy earlier about PPC Macs that are frequently failing these days. Now mine can join the list!

I opened the case to replace the internal speaker earlier, took the old one out, plugged the new one in and started it up. It worked a few times but just died after about 10 minutes, I have a suspicion an electrical short or amp overload may have been the cause.

Worst part is that it's not just the internal, the external audio is crackling and getting worse by the minute, it tends to fluctuate based on disk activity so i'm thinking perhaps a capacitor is the culprit.

Unfortunately it was an audio production machine- so this is really inconvenient! If it keeps up I may be looking to replace the computer, the only spare machine I have at the moment is a Pentium III 600 with 384mb RAM and 64mb nVidia graphics, not a bad setup but the task of finding replacement apps and jumping back into Windows is very daunting at the moment.

Just a shame, it was really starting to improve and now this happens.

EDIT: This is unusual, when the overall OS X volume is down but the iTunes volume is up, the static is gone. Even when iTunes has been boosted to compensate for the low system volume, there's no static. However the internal speaker is still dead. May need to look for an eMac when school starts again in a week or so.

 

[tomlee59]

A failing capacitor can generate its own noise from, effectively, random breakdown of its dielectric. If you reduce the voltage swing across it to a low enough value, the noise may abate for a time. You can get clicks, burps, squeals, whistles and other sounds from a failing capacitor. The offender is quite often connected directly to the speaker, so if you trace backwards from the speaker terminals, you can usually identify a reasonable suspect within minutes.