disable start up sound

To all the above.

Buy the cheapest pair of powered speakers you can find ( £5 / $10?). Plug them into the Mac. Do not turn them on.

So much technology. So little thinking of the easiest solution.... 😁

Heh, all well and good Tonefox ... only this is one of the causes of the problem and not just an obvious solution we have all overlooked 😉

Because the iMac treats the internal speakers and the headphone port as the same channel, even if you have external speakers plugged in and turned off, the internal speakers still bong on start up.

tonefox wrote:

To all the above.

Buy the cheapest pair of powered speakers you can find ( £5 / $10?). Plug them into the Mac. Do not turn them on.

So much technology. So little thinking of the easiest solution.... 😁

Why bother with speakers, all you need is the jack.

Finally I got it.

What I did?

Unpluged the external speakers.

System Preferences->Sound->Output-Internal Speakers->and Mute

Locked changes

Rebooted twice (first boot with no sound; second with sound).

Then plugged the external speakers and

Unlocked changes

System Preferences->Sound->Output-External Speakers->and Mute

Locked changes

Rebooted twice (first boot with no sound; second with no sound).

Unlocked changes

System Preferences->Sound->Output-External Speakers->and unchecked Mute checkbox

Locked changes

and Finally no more sound!!!!

A very strange behaviour!!!

Thanks a lot to everybody for your support.

There seem to be several possible solutions to this issue.

I may have found an alternative and anyone still in the market for a solution may like to visit:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3331989?answerId=16186216022#16186216022

Please see the lower section of the Post, the third in the Thread, your input will be greatfully received.

Today my Startupsound Pref Pane decided to stop working. I used it without a hitch in Snow Leopard. Did a clean intsal of Lion when it was launched back, yonder! No chime in Lion. Didnt even think about checking if it was behaving, because it was fine..

Oh well, guess Lion was taking it's time to gets it's roar up to date.....

When the touch screen macs come out I wonder if a bite to the fingers will be a new feature, along with its roar....

Startupsound is third party software, not Apple. Take it up with the developer.

Unfortunately StartUpSound Pref Pane is not supported in Lion.

By a chain of other events I stumbled on a solution as far as I am concerned. Lowering the volume to a just audible level became possible, but that control seems to be lost now, fortunately the setting remains at the low volume. There is a good chance that this may not work but you might consider it worth the effort in the hope of relieving the pain? Page down to the bottom of the thread to miss most of my ramblings:

See the Link in my posts 3 above this.

Good luck and happy listening.

Hi Acid:

Could I post your method on my blog? thx a lot!

Hi minyen:

Sure, you can post it on your blog. No problem 🙂

I've found THE SOLUTION!!! It's simple and it's totally free! 🙂 It's name is Psst and you can find it here: http://www.satsumac.com/Psst.php

Thanks allot Acid, exactly what I needed.

Thanks but it doesnt seem to be compatible with most of the latest intel macs.. Hopefully soon.

This may help some members having difficulty with controlling the Volume of the Power On Self Test [POST] Sound.

Please note the advisory ‘…controlling the Volume…‘ rather than disabling or switching off, because the purpose of this sound is to advise the user that all is well in the ‘engine room’ before the ‘journey gets underway. I have no wish to captain any ‘vessel’ with a sick engine, and it is better to set about resolving problems before you need recovery.

I decided some time ago that the ‘Gong’ was too loud, especially as I needed to start the Mac at between 01.00 and 06.00 hours daily.

Like others here I utilised available third party software, but over the course of time it should be expected that freebies are not always going to be updated to keep pace with OS upgrades.

During my efforts to reduce the volume, for reasons unknown to me, the ‘Gong’ suddenly stopped functioning. Yay happy day, hooray etc., etc. That was until it was realised that this was not the best solution in the Mac world. At this point the ‘Gong’ issue took second place to the ‘Wi Fi Dropping’ issue which was increasingly troubling me and also affecting many other users. The cure for the latter issue revealed other Mac OS X Lion issues and I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and carry out a fresh Lion installation on a clean HDD.

In the interests of clarity the following should be noted, it explains the route my Mac travelled before arriving at the Lion’s cage.

On delivery my Mac was supplied with Leopard and the standard Mac upgrade process moved it onward to Snow Leopard.

The upgrade to Lion from Snow Leopard was by way of downloading from the Mac App Store:

The download delivered:

Install Mac OS X Lion.app

Prior to running this Application I took the opportunity to view the Contents of the package and in the Folder:

Shared Resources

Found:

InstallESD.dmg

The latter can be used to install Lion or burn to a DVD to create a Lion Installation Disc, and enabled me to carry out the fresh installation.

Please be aware that if you wish to retain use of this software you need to copy Install Mac OS X Lion.app to a safe place before you run it, because on completion of the installation it will automatically be removed from your system.

I have not put it to the test but apparently this software will only function on the Mac which originally downloaded it, so there is little danger of freebie Lions roaming about everywhere?

In this new installation the situation regarding the issue in question was further investigated.

I was delighted to find 100% controllability over the POST ‘Gong’ volume, it can be silenced completely or heard at uncomfortably loud volume but I have less than perfect hearing abilities.

Altering one of the Sliders shown below does not affect the other, the screenshots were taken one after the other simply selecting Internal Speakers dragging around the image and hitting ⌘⇧4 then selecting Line Out before repeating the screenshot capture again.

Since I carried out a fresh installation, without introducing any third party software into the equation, it seems reasonable to assume that this equates to the situation expected to be found in Mac OS X Lion installations. The update to Lion 10.7.2 has not affected this situation.

Please correct my understanding if this is not the case.

The control is by means of  > System Preferences > Sound > Output tab:

Selecting Internal Speakers, and in my case moving the Slider to the position shown to give the ‘Gong’ a low volume:

The statement, in the above screenshot, ‘The selected device has no output controls’ is perhaps somewhat misleading. It may be missing the Balance Controls of the Line Out facility, but it certainly has a Volume Control.

Selecting Line Out, and again in my case moving the Slider to the position shown provides a satisfactory level to my Display Screen Speakers which have their own Volume Control:

From personal use and recollection it is possible that under some OSs the Volume Slider controlled Internal Speakers and Line Out so that the setting was the same for both the mentioned selections, somebody may be able to confirm this? Also the Menu Bar Volume Icon, or when visible the accompanying Vertical Slider, did not change when alternating between the two output devices mentioned.

I have not had any need to investigate the Digital Out facility on the Mac.

The present situation with the Menu Bar Volume Icon and Vertical Slider is that with the above Internal Speaker setting the Icon shows 2 Bars and the Slider is in what seems to be a reasonably accurate position. Whilst the Menu Bar Volume Icon and Vertical Slider with the above Line Out setting the Icon shows the maximum 3 Bars and the Slider is at the top end of it’s track.

It will be interesting to learn if anyone else has found the same situation on their Mac and/or if anyone with a new Mac can confirm the Volume Control actions described above.

This worked great under OS X 10.7.1, but Apple apparently retaliated in 10.7.2 by ignoring this solution. So now I'm back to the loud gong with no recourse other than to leave the sound manually muted on my machine by default (nice design touch, Apple!). startupSound.prefPane by Arcana Research had helped me out before 10.7, but it too doesn't work at all under Lion and they don't appear to have plans to update the software. Any other ideas on how to undo Apple's stubborn insistence on their gong?