PowerBook G4 15" Titanium Sound Card Not Working?!!?

Hi, musicman. There's no "sound card" in your Powerbook — the audio circuitry is all on the logic board. If it's failing, which sounds likely, and if your login alias here accurately reflects your dependence on working audio in the Tibook, then replacing the logic board is the remedy. Apple won't do that now that your machine is classified as "vintage" (discontinued more than 5 but less than 7 years ago), but that's OK considering that Apple would probably charge more than twice as much for the repair as you could sell the repaired machine for. In fact unless you do the repair work yourself, it's all but certain to cost more than the machine is worth now, and even if you shop around for a used board, it will cost enough to make you think twice about putting the money into it. I don't know whether or not a Genius Bar will get you a clear diagnosis; that may depend on whether or not the particular Genius you talk to was ever trained on the old Tibooks. It doesn't hurt to call for an appointment, but you may want to mention which Powerbook model you have and make sure the GB is willing to look at that model.

You can see what's involved in replacing the board yourself here:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Titanium-DVI-Logic-Bo ard/96/1

Reliable parts suppliers who may be able to supply a used logic board with a warranty include:

http://www.pbparts.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.dttservice.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.powerbookresq.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.tekserve.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.powerbookmedic.com (parts, repair work and instructional videos)
http://www.welovemacs.com (parts and used equipment)
http://www.ifixit.com (parts and excellent, illustrated online take-apart instructions)

Prices vary a lot, so shop around.

I also have a Titanium G4 where the sound crackles and shuts off. This happened when I installed OSX 10.5.8. It does not occur with !0.5.7 or any other OS including 9.2.2. I believe this is an Apple OSX 10.5.8 - PPC G4 Titanium problem.

This is interesting. The same thing has happened with the sound. In my case, for a while I tried booting from a different drive which restored my sound but then the sound problem started to happen on this drive as well, I think I may have run the software update, which changed it to 10.5.8.

I am going to try booting up from a drive with 10.5.7 and see if it works. Then I'm going to update to OS 10.58 and see if the problem begins.

I suspect that, given that the different drive worked before, it is a software problem and not a faulty circuit board.

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: PowerBook G4 15"
Model Identifier: PowerBook3,5
Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Processor Speed: 1 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.5.3f2
Serial Number (system): QT3120A0N4M
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-000A959EAB


System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Kernel Version: Darwin 9.8.0
Boot Mode: Normal

Ok I started up from another firewire drive running OS 10.5.8 and I don't have the sound problem. So I am going to run it for a while, and try different sound using apps (iTunes, DVD player etc. and see if my problem developes.

At one point I had read someone talk about PERIAN the quicktime plug-in causing problems with sound.

I also read about some apps changing the Hz of the audio output format which can be adjusted in Audio MIDI Setup.
I'm going to explore those possibilites as well.

Not sure if running the 10.5.8 combo update was the solution, but right after the reboot audio has been back to normal. Happy happy.

For the past week audio would work a few minutes at the most, then a few seconds of crackles, and then silence. Increasing and decreasing the volume sometimes produced short sort of popping sounds, while the audio in eg iTunes stayed off. Unplugging and plugging the speaker plug brought back audio a few seconds, then crackles and silence again.

Other things I did before the combo update: Reset the PRAM and the NVRAM, clean the headphone jack with a cotton swab, spray the headphone jack electronics cleaner and spray anti-oxydation spray. But i did this earlier this week with no result. The 10.5.8 combo was installed on top of 10.5.8 installed through the separate packages in Software Update. I also run Perian.

As a layman I would say the culprit is the software, not the hardware.

Well, that was fun while it lasted. It's back to no sound, a few seconds of sound, crackle and silence. What's strange is that system sounds keep working while the audio in iTunes or VLC goes mute shortly after pressing play.

-ben