Boot Camp, Windows driver issue may be damaging new MacBook Pro speakers

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware
Some reports are circulating that Boot Camp users with heavy audio use in Windows 10 are experiencing random, loud pops, and seeing distorted audio after a period of use that can persist when the computer is rebooted into macOS.




Some users are experiencing a periodic loud pop out of proportion with the volume settings while booted into Windows. The behavior does not manifest in Parallels or other virtual machines. Additionally, users of only macOS on the new MacBook Pro are completely unaffected.

The loud pops appear to be manifested by what appears to be an out-of-date Windows audio driver in Boot Camp. Over time, users report that the pops are physically damaging the speakers.

Users seeing the damage are reporting across the board volume imbalances between speakers, and others report distortion when the volume of the audio in any OS above around 50%.

The problem does not appear to be related to a particular model of the new MacBook Pro family, with scattered reports surfacing from users of all configurations.

AppleInsider has contacted Apple about the situation, and was told to have users manifesting the problem contact Apple Care phone support to document the problem, and to make a Genius Bar appointment for assessment and evaluation.

Amelioration of the problem

AppleInsider suggests that users who must use Windows with Boot Camp plug in a pair of headphones or speakers into the headphone jack on the computer while inside Windows. This completely bypasses Apple's speakers, preventing damage.

Some users experiencing the problem have solved it through installation of the Realtek HD Audio Driver version 6.0.1.7989 released on Nov. 15. The updated non-Apple-approved driver appears to rectify the popping issue.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Thats what you get for using Windows....


    *Waits for all the dislikes*
    edited November 2016 macpluspluszroger73smiffy31jkichlinelkrupppeterhartwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 22
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    realjustinlongjuanguapotycho24
  • Reply 3 of 22
    gustavgustav Posts: 827member
    So it seems like Windows lets you turn the volume up enough to blow the speakers. On regular audio equipment this has never been an issue, but computers traditionally never allowed the amplifier to run hard enough to do this. Given the speakers are integrated into the machine, this seems like a hardware design flaw. The amp should be hardware-limited.
    Solidysamoria
  • Reply 4 of 22
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.
  • Reply 5 of 22
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    macxpress said:
    Thats what you get for using Windows....


    *Waits for all the dislikes*
    Aren't bootcamp drivers provided by Apple? Sounds to me like this is one of those cases where Apple didn't do due their diligence because of disinterest in thoroughly testing something they don't care about.

    My one attempt to use Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro was thwarted by bad trackpad drivers. That was on Apple because it's their custom trackpad. The audio chipset might be standard PC hardware but it's still up to Apple to make sure the drivers work correctly with their hardware.
    perkedelsingularity
  • Reply 6 of 22
    "Boot Camp users [...] seeing distorted audio after a period of use" Wow, yeah. If you can *see* the audio, there's definitely something unusual going on.
    coolfactorrealjustinlong
  • Reply 7 of 22
    FatmanFatman Posts: 513member
    Winblows barely works on its own hardware why would you load that shxt on Apple hardware? I updated my PC laptop to Win10, the dedicated graphics card now overheats due to poorly written & weakly supported drivers and I had to manually edit the Registry to get it to scan correctly on an external monitor - every Win update that is installed requires me to re-edit registry. Garbage software. I ended up running what I thought was windows only trading software on my 5 year old iMac and it runs so smooth! Thanks Unix ... cough ... I mean MacOS!
  • Reply 8 of 22
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.

    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    tycho24
  • Reply 9 of 22
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    I have to wonder why MacBook users would use Windows on a laptop, that is a disaster in the waiting. I can understand the desktop due to the desire to not have to physically move machines around to use a new one, but on a laptop ... WHY are you using a laptop?

    It's a lot like the problem with Linux users. They cry about lack of support from hardware vendors, and then when a hardware vendor decides to release something that works with their OS (eg Realtek drivers) they complain why the manufacturer didn't release the source code instead. The Manufacturer is then blamed for not adhering to whatever rubbish be it power management or fancy feature buttons that the Linux user expects instead of oh... maybe just running the damn OS the machine came with.

    If you run Windows on a Mac Laptop, expect to have problems. Apple can not, and does not engineer their hardware to run Windows, it's engineered to run MacOS. If you can run Windows on it, fine, but you're going to lose power management and various other driver-specific tweaks that Apple made to the Apple driver on MacOS that don't exist in the generic driver Apple signed for use in Windows. Just be happy you can boot Windows at all.


    macxpress
  • Reply 10 of 22
    macxpress said:
    Thats what you get for using Windows....


    *Waits for all the dislikes*
    Does Apple or Microsoft supply the Boot Camp drivers?
    singularity
  • Reply 11 of 22
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,544member
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.

    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    With all due respect: 

    Your ignorance is not the editors' problem. 
    (I knew what it meant, though.)
    bestkeptsecret
  • Reply 12 of 22
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    dysamoria said:
    macxpress said:
    Thats what you get for using Windows....


    *Waits for all the dislikes*
    Aren't bootcamp drivers provided by Apple? Sounds to me like this is one of those cases where Apple didn't do due their diligence because of disinterest in thoroughly testing something they don't care about.

    My one attempt to use Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro was thwarted by bad trackpad drivers. That was on Apple because it's their custom trackpad. The audio chipset might be standard PC hardware but it's still up to Apple to make sure the drivers work correctly with their hardware.
    It shouldn't be up to Apple to make sure Windows works. In reality, they don't even have to offer BootCamp. They could let the user live in a real Windows world where they have to go get their own drivers and download them from the manufacturer. 
  • Reply 13 of 22
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member

    curt12 said:
    macxpress said:
    Thats what you get for using Windows....


    *Waits for all the dislikes*
    Does Apple or Microsoft supply the Boot Camp drivers?
    Apple creates the drivers for their proprietary things like the trackpad, backlighting buttons, etc. Everything else is nothing different than if you were installing Windows on a PC. If Apple uses a Realtek Audio chip, then you go get it from there if Microsoft doesn't have one built-in. 
  • Reply 14 of 22
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member

    misa said:
    I have to wonder why MacBook users would use Windows on a laptop, that is a disaster in the waiting. I can understand the desktop due to the desire to not have to physically move machines around to use a new one, but on a laptop ... WHY are you using a laptop?

    It's a lot like the problem with Linux users. They cry about lack of support from hardware vendors, and then when a hardware vendor decides to release something that works with their OS (eg Realtek drivers) they complain why the manufacturer didn't release the source code instead. The Manufacturer is then blamed for not adhering to whatever rubbish be it power management or fancy feature buttons that the Linux user expects instead of oh... maybe just running the damn OS the machine came with.

    If you run Windows on a Mac Laptop, expect to have problems. Apple can not, and does not engineer their hardware to run Windows, it's engineered to run MacOS. If you can run Windows on it, fine, but you're going to lose power management and various other driver-specific tweaks that Apple made to the Apple driver on MacOS that don't exist in the generic driver Apple signed for use in Windows. Just be happy you can boot Windows at all.


    I agree....this is something Apple doesn't have to do. Especially now days when you can use something like Parallels or VMWare that will basically do everything you want and you can run both side by side...even with 16GB of RAM. smile Why are people installing Windows as a standalone OS so they have to constantly reboot from macOS to Windows and visa versa? I guess you'd do it play Windows only games, but it seems silly to me to buy something like a MacBook Pro and play games on it. I'm sure it will handle it, but it just seems silly to me. 
    edited November 2016
  • Reply 15 of 22
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    I can tell you from my many many many experiences working/experiences installing/debugging windows 10 installs, that driver issues are plentiful.

    The base install of windows 10 almost always installs the wrong driver for something that will cause some crash, serious issues.

    Thing like driver signing that they didn't really announced, deactivated 3 drivers on my desktop when installing the anniversary edition and had to remove driver signing to actually make it work OK since OEM are not going to pay MS money on their razor thin margins to certify 3+ year old drivers on hardware they're not using anymore.
     
  • Reply 16 of 22
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.
    Well I saw the humour in the OPs comment. He or she wasn't getting on anyone's case. The word is fine but its overkill. Wouldn't  'work around' be a natural fit in this context?

    Also, a word being adult or not has little to do with this. 

    How often do you  use the Word 'utilize' instead of 'use'.

    From ' Usage and Abusage '

    'utilize is, 99 times out of 100, much inferior to use; the other one time it is merely inferior.'

    I would agree with that but each to their own.
  • Reply 17 of 22
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    spheric said:
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.

    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    With all due respect: 

    Your ignorance is not the editors' problem. 
    (I knew what it meant, though.)
    Not knowing the meaning of this word in no way means you are ignorant. 
  • Reply 18 of 22
    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    The Apple OS has Control-Click (on the word) for folks who didn't exactly ace the Writing & Language section of the SAT.
  • Reply 19 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    avon b7 said:
    spheric said:
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.

    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    With all due respect: 

    Your ignorance is not the editors' problem. 
    (I knew what it meant, though.)
    Not knowing the meaning of this word in no way means you are ignorant. 
    Not knowing something is exactly what ignorant means.  It's not only ok to be a bit ignorant, it's inevitable.  Complaining about a writer using a word you don't know is less ok.  It's an opportunity to learn a new word.
  • Reply 20 of 22
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    crowley said:
    avon b7 said:
    spheric said:
    dysamoria said:
    wiggin said:
    Amelioration of the problem
    Somebody got out their thesaurus this morning. LOL
    What word would you have preferred? I give AI a hard time for constant typos and not proofreading, but I don't see a reason to get on their cases for utilizing an adult vocabulary.

    Not a very common word, by far. I don't know what it means, and I'm an adult.
    With all due respect: 

    Your ignorance is not the editors' problem. 
    (I knew what it meant, though.)
    Not knowing the meaning of this word in no way means you are ignorant. 
    Not knowing something is exactly what ignorant means.  It's not only ok to be a bit ignorant, it's inevitable.  Complaining about a writer using a word you don't know is less ok.  It's an opportunity to learn a new word.
    Welcome to the world of language communication, where words are just part of the story and where words may have different meanings in different contexts. Where words may have different meanings according to tone. In this case how many possible interpretations could you come up with?
    edited November 2016
Sign In or Register to comment.