I’ve had this happen twice now and couldn’t find anything about it. While happily working away on my laptop, the speakers made a loud, sudden pop. After that no sound would come out of them - no iTunes, no notifications, nothing. I turn the volume up and down several times with no effect. Mute caused the popping noise though so I knew the speakers weren’t dead just freaked out. On a whim, I plugged in my headphones and mashed the mute button again. Viola! Sound worked fine in the headphones. Upon unplugging them, I now have sound again. Uh…ok.
Not sure if it warrants a trip to the Apple Store (when am I NOT looking for a reason to go there) but since I can’t exactly reproduce the issue I’m guessing I’ll have to wait for a reoccurrence.
David O’Hara is a Senior Consultant with Improving Enterprises in Dallas, Texas.
January 26, 2008 at 5:30 pm
That is bizarre. Were this a PC, I would instantly lay blame on the sound card. (Does a macbook have a sound card?) …
January 28, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Static maybe? The after market speakers I have on my home PC do some weird popping when I turn off the ceiling fan via the wall switch. I just have to turn the speakers off and back on again. I’ve always assumed this was related to static.
February 1, 2008 at 11:33 am
Wierd - same thing happened to me this morning. Google led me to your post, I tried the headphone trick and sure enough, back to normal.
February 9, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Same here. Thanks for saving me a trip to the Apple store!
February 26, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Wow, the same thing is happening to me right now… Thanks for the tip on fixing it. I wonder if its common?
March 16, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Like the person above, I Google’d when I had this issue and was led to your post… and it worked! How odd. I was freaking out.
March 31, 2008 at 3:15 pm
thanks for the help. my macbook pro has done this atleast 5 times since i got it, and normally i just wait for it to cut back on. i assume it’s some sort of overheating mechanism that keeps the speakers from dying when the computer is beginning to get too hot. mine generally gets overheated when i use it on the black neoprene case i purchased for it. quite obviously because the case is attracting the heat because of the black color and then the heat goes nowhere. i always seem to forget that that happens and i don’t stop i before it happens. anyways, thanks a ton for the quicker tip to getting it back to normal.
March 31, 2008 at 10:04 pm
It worked! AMAZING!
April 26, 2008 at 3:07 am
Hello Guys
I am sorry for being simple but I do not quite get what the solution is for fixing the speaker pop problem.
Cheers
Greg
April 26, 2008 at 7:04 am
If you plug in some headphones and then press the mute button, you will have sound in the headphones. When you unplug the headphones, sound should be fine. If you don’t hear anything in the headphones or sound doesn’t come back, I’d recommend taking it in to the “genius bar”.
April 26, 2008 at 11:43 am
Hello David
Thanks for the post. I have just done what you suggested and there is no problem with the sound either with the earphones plugged in or without them. Unfortunately that slight ‘pop’ sound is not gone. When you do something in the finder, for example copy and paste there is always a ‘pop’ before the actual alert sound comes on.
I have been looking everywhere for the solution without any success and frankly I am expecting a firmware or an update release that will fix this common bug.
Thanks
Greg
April 26, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Ah ok, with mine there was NO sound from the speakers as opposed to a popping noise before sound came out. While it’s possible that there’s debris in the earphone jacks that is causing this, my guess is you’ll need someone to look at it for you. Sorry.
April 26, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Hey.
No worries mate. My only concern is that the mac is properly tuned in and everything is workin’ fine on it. this popping issue is the only one that makes me wanna kick its ass…if i saw a ‘genius’ they would say it is a common issue, there is nothing they can do about it at the moment which i can not believe..
G
April 26, 2008 at 10:28 pm
just wanted to add to the discussion.
same thing (pop/no sound) has been happening.. it just happened but was the second time.
i have the program smcFancontrol and ran it once the pop happened… soon as the temperature of my computer went back to about 130 (from about 156) degrees… the pop indicated that the sound came back..
still doesnt solve the problem… and i learned a new trick with the headphones… so i’m just adding some input so someone can solve this thing…
August 4, 2008 at 8:55 am
Yup - same here but on a Macbook black, happens all the time. i have to keep a set of earphones handy just for that issue. i googled it several time and nothing except people experiencing the same thing. Sister has the macbook white and it does the same nonsense…. whats the deal?
August 5, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I’m another that came here via Google. I had the exact same problem. I didn’t try the headphone trick. I closed my MBP and left it for the night. In the morning I hit the mute button and the popping noise was gone. The sound was back too. So this really could be a temperature issue.
August 25, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Thanks so much for the help! Like many others, google led me to your post. What a sweet little trick eh? Take Care
September 20, 2008 at 11:21 pm
OMG, thanks for the headphone trick. My white Macbook does this all the time, it’s pretty annoying. It pretty much only happens though when I’ve recorded something in Garageband and want to hear it played back. ???
September 25, 2008 at 12:42 pm
My mbp does it too, only after the system reaches 175 degrees or above though. This computer is macs version of the easy bake oven. ugh.
September 26, 2008 at 1:58 pm
my new MBP did this too… thanks for the headphone tip!
October 16, 2008 at 6:10 pm
thanks for the tip. i, too, found the post via google and my macbook pro had the same problem. thanks for saving me a trip to the FAR AWAY apple store and for saving me from freaking out that they were blown for good! i wonder why the speakers pop though…apple should fix that.
October 29, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Haha, had the same problem, and that fixed it. Wouldnt you think after this many problems they would fix it? Lets hope its fixed with the new MBP.
December 12, 2008 at 2:39 am
I had a similar problem with my g5 imac. It started with pop>mute and developed into a long uncontrollable and rather frightening extended pop. took ALOT of convincing on my part at the genius bar and two misdiagnoses to get a whole new logic board. works fine now a year later.
December 30, 2008 at 8:10 am
Hi, I’ve got a new MB since 3 months, and the pop-mute sequence has occured over 5 times already. So I’m very happy with the earplug-trick, saves me a restart. But I must also (like Sam) say that it only happens when playing back recorded stuff in Garageband, so I don’t think the temperature thing is the only problem.. (As it happens instantly upon changing the position of the timer, and I don’t think that can instantly create the heat increase). So would be nice if a software update could fix the problem, but till that time I guess the earplugs are a necessity to keep it running properly!
December 31, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ah, this just happened to me as well, popped it into The Google, found this, and you, sir, saved me a LOT of stress. Thank you for pointing out the obvious when others are too busy freaking out.