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Noise from speakers when iMac is sleeping?

  • 07-03-2012 09:50PM
    #1
    milltown
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,624 ✭✭✭


    From time to time, a while after my imac goes to sleep (dozes off on it's own as opposed to me pressing sleep) I get white noise coming from my speakers.

    I'm using a Native Instruments Audio 2 USB soundcard and powered monitors. I have been in touch with NI and it's not a problem they are aware of or have heard of before. The big problem with troubleshooting it is, as soon as I wake the computer the noise stops.

    I'm only a year into my mac marriage so I'm not too hot on troubleshooting them yet. Can anyone offer any pointers to track this down, or suggest where I should start looking? Are there any likely culprits that could be running in the background and not going to sleep as they should?

    It's a Feb 2011 27" with i3 and 4gb of RAM.

    TIA.


Comments

  • #2
    Liameter
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 898 ✭✭✭Liameter


    I think that Macs are designed to do some background "housekeeping". However, if the iMac is asleep, why is the external speaker system still powered? Why not simply switch it off and save energy - the same reason as for sleeping the Mac?


  • #3
    muggyog
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 725 ✭✭✭muggyog


    Believe this is an audio problem rather than a Mac problem. You have a active USB device connected to an active speaker. When you remove the Mac input to the USB device you now have a feedback situation with USB device and speaker ( output to speaker is floating ). This would be similar to having a bad earth supply in an Analog audio system. That is an issue with active devices, you cannot predict the outcome when they are not powered.


  • #4
    milltown
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,624 ✭✭✭milltown


    Not the responses I was hoping for :(
    I realise that the sensible, green and mean thing to do would be to turn off the speakers. One of the things I liked most about the Mac was that, if you left it alone, it would doze off almost completely but be ready to bing back to life at the press of a key or the click of a mouse, not like my old PC which would continue to heat the house, and keep it awake with the noise of the fans, even if it hadn't been touched in days.
    I think some more investigative work is required here, given the sporadic nature of the noise. Again, any help WRT process monitoring in a Mac environment would be most welcome.


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