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Employer just awarded me a macbook (MacBookPro9,1) loaded with 10.8. I'm getting terrible white noise problems and am having troubles finding ways to fix it. Googling around it appears this has been a somewhat common problem for several years but I could not find a single viable solution. Most people suggest buying a usb sound card which is completely ridiculous when all I want to do is listen to mp3's at work. I get the noise with both the internal speakers and headphones. I don't think it's bad headphones or cabling as the headphones work fine on my older macbook. The white noise is consistently loud no matter what I have the system volume set to. System sounds and music plays fine otherwise, there's just a layer of noise underneath it. It's the same sound you get when you turn on your home stereo and crank the volume up to maximum with no music playing.. which maybe says to me the soundcard is set wrong, but the preferences panel doesn't have any kind of advanced mode for me to dick with. Suggestions? Give up and return the laptop as defective or is there some kind of advanced mode that lets me adjust settings on the sound card myself? edit - unplugging from the wall and running off battery has no effect on the noise either, so I don't think it's generic "shielding problems" unless it's a problem internal to the laptop itself. xzzy fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Aug 22, 2012 |
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Aug 22, 2012 16:45
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| # ¿ Nov 17, 2025 19:21 |
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I smashed open the macbook with a crowbar and found no russian transmitter in it.. so I'm glad that's not the source of the problem.
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Aug 22, 2012 21:32
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I've only had the huge trackpad for two days and I'm already hooked. I tried using my 2008 macbook last night and poo poo just didn't feel right. My magic trackpad has already been ordered.. Apple is pretty good at this poo poo. 
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Aug 23, 2012 15:28
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Coughing-up Tweed posted:I had one time where I booted up my MBP and had some fairly loud white noise and distorted audio in my headphones. Going into Audio MIDI Setup in Utilities, selecting the Built-in Output, and changing the sample rate or bit depth to some other setting and then back reset whatever bugged out (whatever those settings are isn't really important). Yeah, I've tried all that over the past day. I even did a clean install of 10.8 on the odd chance my time machine import brought in some crazy setting that messed up the sound card.. still get white noise. The only time I don't get white noise is when the power on chime plays.  So yeah, moral of the story is AppleCare.
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Aug 23, 2012 16:34
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That said, 4GB is going to get pretty cramped if you end up keeping the thing for 3-4 years and try to keep pace with OS updates. $210 has some sticker shock, but you can never have too much RAM.
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Aug 23, 2012 18:23
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I think migration assistant will even find the drive and let you copy information off it.. which is nice because it will preserve file ownership and everything for you. But I'm not 100% sure as I use time machine for that stuff.
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Aug 28, 2012 16:34
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slothrop posted:Ok I have no idea about migration assistant! Guess I'll look that up It's in the utilities folder, been around basically forever. It will give you some checkboxes to choose what to migrate.. system settings, apps, and user accounts and even does some basic compatibility testing, warning you if an app won't work anymore. It can sync from time machine, a random hard drive, or another mac over the network. The only thing I don't like about it is it can't merge accounts.. if you make an account with the same username on a fresh install, it will insist on copying your home directory to a renamed account. Definitely not optimal. So I just make a dummy account on system install, migrate the home directory, and then delete the dummy account.
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Aug 28, 2012 18:20
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decypher posted:Perhaps this is a naive questions but.. For user accounts, the biggest advantage is migration assistant fixes permissions. If an account has uid 501 on a machine and you migrate to a machine that has a different account using uid 501, it will move you to uid 502 and fix ownership for you. Time machine restores files with original permissions. So if you're on a single user system the tools are equivalent, but for anything else migration assistant is more robust.
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Aug 28, 2012 18:36
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If only the three finger drag worked properly in chrome. 
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Aug 29, 2012 13:18
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What are you browsing? How bright do you have the screen cranked up? Avoiding flash or cpu intensive work and dimming the screen are the best way to preserve battery. Pretty much a universal truth for all portable computing.
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Aug 29, 2012 15:43
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Manky posted:Nope, it's because Flash is built into Chrome, and last time I checked there's no way to disable it.
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Aug 30, 2012 12:36
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Nope, java doesn't come with chrome. Good for google, because it's an enormous install for what you get out of it. Mac has a java configuration tool too, in the utilities folder I think. You can disable java systemwide from there.. probably overkill but it's an option.
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Aug 30, 2012 17:47
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I just left the mighty mouse plugged in and sitting on my desk alongside the magic trackpad. So when I need mouse precision, it's there. I've cleaned that little bastard out so many times I can get it disassembled and cleaned in under five minutes now.
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Sep 5, 2012 13:13
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My favorite part of the black macbook is how it ages. The white plastic models get dirty and lovely looking, and the aluminum ones mostly just get whitish scuff marks. My black macbook looks like it's survived wars.
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Sep 7, 2012 16:53
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You'd think after Samsung got bitch slapped for copying Apple, HP would have done something to differentiate their product. I'm not sure making horribly useless arrow keys qualifies as "differentiation".
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Sep 10, 2012 19:53
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Things are going to come full circle and we're going to have beige computers once more.
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Sep 10, 2012 20:49
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I store my poo poo on my mac and use time machine. Network shares are the responsibility of the server owner.
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Sep 11, 2012 17:12
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Shaocaholica posted:At work we have a pretty sophisticated linux setup where user dirs and apps are all remote with their own backup systems that are not OS dependent. Yes, it should be. Underneath it all OSX is still a unix based system. Mount an NFS disk, and control+click the user in system preferences to get to the advanced options. Change their home directory path to the NFS share. I'd never volunteer for it though. Network mounted home directories loving sucks because you're throwing away a ton of performance. It does make administration a breeze however.. until performance issues show up. The big one for me is web browsing speed.. browsers save their cache files to the user's home directory which means they all have to be sent over the network and it all turns to poo poo.
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Sep 11, 2012 18:17
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Okay internet tough guy.  I understand the advantages of central home directories. It's basically the only way to solve certain problems in large installations. I'm just warning there is a performance hit for it and users should be given the choice between data protection and convenience.
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Sep 11, 2012 18:34
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Anyone know a secret trick to speed up the "screen slide" when I use the four finger drag gesture to switch between full screen apps? It takes too long and windows won't accept input until the drop shadow re-renders (says to me the space I am switching to is actually just a screenshot because nothing is animated either). If I use command-tab the switching is almost instant and is the type of speed I'm seeking.
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Sep 12, 2012 15:35
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It's not a totally unreasonable question, there are some wire technologies out there that do drop to the lowest common denominator. Ethernet will drop everyone to the lowest common speed if you're not using switches, for example.
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Sep 18, 2012 23:01
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I treat my apple hardware like poo poo because I love the weathered look after they're a couple years old. I don't bang the stuff around, but I don't put it in cases either. It's not damage, it's "patina". 
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Sep 19, 2012 15:22
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I use tongs to eat my cheetos to avoid gunking up my trackpad.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:56
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ML in general seems kind of weird about sleeping. Under 10.7 or 10.6 a tap of the spacebar or plugging in a usb device would wake stuff up pretty reliably but with 10.8 it feels like it takes several mashes of buttons to get any kind of response. Also has a bad habit of screwing up the desktop background when waking up to a display change (as in, I use the laptop's screen, put it to sleep, then plug in an external monitor and wake the computer up). I'll either get the galaxy background instead of my personal one, or my personal one will be crammed into the upper left corner. Only logging out and back in fixes it.
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Sep 26, 2012 15:33
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Yep, I wiped the hard drive prior to install. My particular machine is a 2011 model MBP. It doesn't happen constantly. Just frequently enough that I can't discard it as a random occurrence. I had sleep issues with my 2008 MB under 10.6 as well, but they cleared up over time as Apple patched the OS up. I just figured mountain lion was having the same growing pains.
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Sep 26, 2012 15:52
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I'm anticipating the trickle down that will someday allow me to buy a 21" retina-equivalent lcd.  Begone forever, pixels!
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Oct 5, 2012 01:26
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Lexicon posted:Holy crap. I just bought an Apple TV and its the most awesome Mac/iOS accessory imaginable. AirPlay is this quiet little success story that hasn't quite been discovered yet by the masses. They have an unsecured airplay screen at my gym and it's the coolest thing to dick around with.. makes me feel like Stark when he's testifying before congress in iron man.
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Oct 13, 2012 22:40
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awesome-express posted:How would you go about doing that? I've got two raspberry pi's and I'd love to have something nice like that in my car. Audio goes a little something like this: http://trouch.com/2012/08/03/airpi-airplay-audio-with-raspberry/ For video, you want raspbmc: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AddingAirPlayToAReceiverWithoutAnAppleTVRaspbmcAndTheRaspberryPi.aspx
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Oct 14, 2012 04:01
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Shmoogy posted:Rumor is iMacs for sale day after the event. Probably other things too. gently caress. You mean my new iphone is already obsolete? 
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Oct 16, 2012 14:56
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kuskus posted:In general, I'd really like not having to two-hand my iMac and scrape around on the aluminum until it finally fits in a port/slot. A friend of mine was trying to get me to make a 3D prototype of his napkin plans for an iMac USB hub that would reach-around and put some of your ports on the bottom rim. I didn't because I think it's dumb and it'd block the vents. Admittedly, I can't think of a solution that's not contrary to the whole point of the design. Put a mirror behind the computer, angle it so you can see the ports. 
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Oct 23, 2012 19:12
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I loved the hell out of my jaz drive. 2GB of removable media in an era before DVD burners? Hell yeah! It was pretty fast too because I bought the scsi version. I still have it in a drawer at home, will probably never use it again but I just can't throw it away. When vmware launched, I had one cartridge each for 3 different OS' and when I wanted to switch I just popped a different one in. It felt like living in the future.
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Oct 26, 2012 16:17
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gregday posted:-See! I open all my files in Word!  It's a shame I wasn't born 100 years later. I'm sure there will still be absurdly stupid poo poo going on in 2112 (hopefully nothing involving priests telling us music is a waste of time) but at least by that point there will be no one alive who didn't grow up with computers and maybe, hopefully, we'll all have developed some basic competency with managing files.
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Oct 30, 2012 15:47
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Bob Morales posted:At least half of them are still loving clueless when it comes to computers. That's pretty disappointing. I'm pretty well cut off from the "kids" these days.. I'm in my mid 30's and at my workplace I'm still one of the younger guys. I would have figured with everyone carrying a computer in their pocket the ground level for competency would have started to improve.
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Oct 30, 2012 16:02
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Xabi posted:It's pissing me off to no end that I have to add a keyboard/mouse for this to work. Under previous versions of OSX, plugging any usb device into the machine would wake it up with the lid closed. Not sure why they took that out, it was useful.. when travelling I could plug the ipod and the wife's ipad in to charge them without having the screen light up.
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Oct 31, 2012 13:18
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Mu Zeta posted:Nobody asked for thinner desktops Apple researched the miniaturization tech and goddamn it they're going to get the most out of it before the other civilizations catch up.
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Nov 27, 2012 22:27
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My fingers still remember the pain of working on their IIsi era machines. The cases were designed to open fairly easily, but once you got inside there was prickly bits everywhere. Replacing a hard drive was a guaranteed scuffed knuckle or two. Classics were bad for other reasons, most notably the enormous circuitry that ran the CRT. 
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Nov 28, 2012 16:06
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Bob Morales posted:Maybe I'm just getting older but I don't gently caress around with my computers any more.   I used to be mister hardcore linux guy who enjoyed spending hours digging up methods for squeezing a little bit of extra performance out of every computer. These days dicking with kernels and compilers just makes me tired. Thank god OSX is a thing, because it provides all the unix goodness I crave on a system that just works. I'm not sure what I'd be using if it wasn't available.
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Nov 28, 2012 16:46
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I had a brief stint in the desktop publishing world eons ago, and for me, slow hard drives were tolerable (not that I had any choice back then, but it didn't bother me). What really made the job painful was small displays. It's not just resolution that's important, but how much the display filled my field of vision. Because of that, I'd say an iMac with the biggest screen you can get is the only way to go. If you do decide to get a laptop, at least get an external screen to go with it.
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Dec 3, 2012 15:44
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Is anyone having issues with auto-connecting to known wifi networks under 10.8? MBP9,1 and it goes through these phases where I have to manually select the wireless network every time it wakes up from a sleep. It happens most often when I'm at home, which I've been assuming is due to the fact that there's 20+ networks in range of my apartment and maybe it's just having problems spotting my home network. But it's also been happening at work where there's only one network. It'll behave like this for a few days before it goes back to properly picking up my preferred networks. Googling around this apparently happens to some people but none of the solutions (reboot router, renew dhcp leases, re-configure network on the mac) have done anything to aid me.
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Dec 12, 2012 15:54
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| # ¿ Nov 17, 2025 19:21 |
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Sandisk is a good brand for SD cards. Buy the highest class you can afford.. in my experience, the actual witnessed write speeds are about no better than 1/2 the claimed speed of the card. Read speed get much closer to the advertised speed.
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Dec 16, 2012 00:59
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