Startup Chime AWOL

riclovriclov
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
All of a sudden my G4 quit playing the startup chime. I thought that was part of the firmware that couldn't be accidently turned off. What could have caused it to stop? My sound settings are right and all the other alerts and sounds work perfectly. I zapped the pram, ran Norton and Tech Tool, still no cute little note at startup.

I know it's no big deal, but I worry that it could be an indicator of impending doom.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    jutusjutus Posts: 272member
    here's some possibilities:



    - Your speaker is disconnected.



    - You've got something in the speaker jack at the back.
  • Reply 2 of 11
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    I know the chime won't go off if your computer was set to mute when you restarted. Sounds like that's not the problem, though.
  • Reply 3 of 11
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    just so you all know, at my old work there are at least two other machines that recently had this happen.



    the startup chime no longer chimes.



    one is a dual 1Ghz g4, the other is a revision C iMac.



    i think both ran recent updates that might have puked the start up chime.



    otherwise i have no idea what would be causing it, unless you also happen to be running retrospect backup software, that's about the only other constant on these machines outside of the OS.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    noahjnoahj Posts: 4,503member
    You could always hit that reset button on the Motherboard that basically clears the NVRAM when a ZAP will not do it. I am not sure exactly where the button is, but I am sure that somone else can post more info on this...
  • Reply 5 of 11
    enderender Posts: 353member
    My G4/500 DP had this problem until I installed 10.1.3. Have you updated your system recently?



    Oh, and the startup chime worked when booting into 9, just not 10.1.2. So I think it was the OS.



    -Ender



    [Edit: version number typo]



    [ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 11
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I'd try the pram zap. Zap it a few times.
  • Reply 7 of 11
    riclovriclov Posts: 6member
    I posted this message on my local Mac BBS and got the same comment: Zap the pram... one guy suggested doing it repeatedly 30 times! Know what?... IT WORKED! (after only about 5 times). It was also suggested that I get religious about backing up, in case this little problem might foretell much bigger problems to come. Good advice which I plan to heed!

    Thanks for all your helpful suggestions.
  • Reply 8 of 11
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I read about zapping the pram 5 times at the yellow dog linux group. There must be something to 5?
  • Reply 9 of 11
    concentricityconcentricity Posts: 434member
    [quote]Originally posted by riclov:

    <strong>I posted this message on my local Mac BBS and got the same comment: Zap the pram... one guy suggested doing it repeatedly 30 times! Know what?... IT WORKED! (after only about 5 times). It was also suggested that I get religious about backing up, in case this little problem might foretell much bigger problems to come. Good advice which I plan to heed!

    Thanks for all your helpful suggestions.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    sorry i'm late to the thread...

    but, i've had this happen on probably 12-15 machines in the past 6 months. most of them it turned out to be dead/failing MoBo batteries causing corruption of the PRAM. so, although yours might be working now, you might want to check/replace the battery (they're really cheap anyway).

    Good luck!



    [ 02-27-2002: Message edited by: concentricity ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 11
    concentricityconcentricity Posts: 434member
    [quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:

    <strong>I read about zapping the pram 5 times at the yellow dog linux group. There must be something to 5?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    for those who don't know, the reason for zapping 'several' times is that it generally takes more than one cycle for the charge to clear from the PRAM. in practice, it's most often two or three cycles of holding down cmd-opt-p-r, but if the computer is already on, that takes three or four reboots. (since the first 'bong' is just resetting, then 2 or 3 more 'bong's to reset the PRAM.)
  • Reply 11 of 11
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Interesting. So that's why a "boot from cold start pram zap" is different that a "restart pram zap".
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