Audio fading in and out then crackling very loud! HELP!

[The_J_Man]

Hey guys,
I need some help here, A friend gave me a powerbook g4 1.25 GHZ upgraded ram, anyway theres a big problem with it and I cant find anything on the net about it to help me out. After turning on the powerbook, the sound works fine until it starts to heat up then everything goes haywire, the sound starts to get really loud then gets really low, volume controls no longer work on the keyboard or through system preferences etc. After a while it gets faster going from loud to quiet and eventually get a really irritating static sound that is really loud. The only way that I am able to get rid of it is if I close the screen (put it to sleep) then everything is ok until I play some sort of audio. I have an M Audio Omnistudio that lets me record and junk so I can still have some audio playback through that but i want to get this fixed cause i cant be carrying my omnistudio everywhere I go!. Could this be my sound card? or is my powerbook just plain screwed. I dont have a hardware test cd for it yet, I am going to get one from a friend. If any of you know what this is or could tell me anything, I would appreciate it! Thanks.
CRJ

 

[LimeiBook86]

I would call up Apple, this sounds like a defect, I don't know about your warenty , if you have one or not, but if you stop by at an Apple store or give them a call I'm sure they might be able to help you. Did you do anything with the PowerBook before this started to happen? Or was this always a problem?

 

[The_J_Man]

Well there is no warranty, It was given to me by a friend that got fet up with it. I was thinking that it may be the sound card, also it may have something to do with heat. Every time my powerbook gets really hot, the sound starts fadinng in and out etc. As for taking it to an apple store, Ill have to look around for one, im not exactly sure where one is in my area yet.

 

[yenko]

Well there is no warranty, It was given to me by a friend that got fet up with it. I was thinking that it may be the sound card, also it may have something to do with heat. Every time my powerbook gets really hot, the sound starts fadinng in and out etc. As for taking it to an apple store, Ill have to look around for one, im not exactly sure where one is in my area yet.

There's your clue....Maybe someone has been inside of it and forgot to replace the heat sink..........or...........fan is shot............or............Go To Genius Bar

 

[trainguy77]

How hot is really hot you may want to check: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19994

Does the temperature rise as the sound gets worse?

 

[The_J_Man]

I looked on another thread about heat "hot powerbook" and i dont know if mine gets much hotter than theirs although it seems pretty damn hot when its on your lap. I emailed these guys to see if they knew if this sound card would solve my problem. During the instalation I have to pretty much take everything apart so I can see then what it looks like (whether the fan looks broken or the heat sink whatever. http://www.pbfixit.com/cart/catalog/product_438_G4_Aluminum_15_DC__Sound_Card.html
The only thing is, what if this isnt my problem, I dont want to be spending money on something that wont fix it, or even worse that I put back together and it doesnt work at all!

 

[trainguy77]

So what temperature does it get too.

 

[The_J_Man]

This is starting to get wierd, well yesterday opened up the memory slot thing, and switched my memory cards ( I have 1 256MB and 1 512MB ) around and it took a lot longer for the sound to go weird, I ran Virtual PC and played audio which i count do before (thinking that it maybe it had something to do with CPU usage) but anyway, it seems to take a lot longer to go qwerky. Today I started watching a dvd and it took 40 minutes before the sound screwed up. I think that it might be the heat. I took a spool of cd's, placed an ice pack on that, then set my laptop on it so that air could flow in easy and the back part would get cooled down the fastest from the ice pack.
It was running around 140F something before. right now with the ice pack its at:
Power Support Bottomside - 115F
Processor Bottomside - 110F
Processor / controller Bottomside - 115F
the last one - 95F
and the battery is at 88F

Ill see how long it takes for things to screw up with the cold pack, if it is the heat, what can I do to fix it? i thought that maybe its clogged with a lot of dust or somethin, or the fan doesnt go, i dunno.

 

[trainguy77]

What is your CPU set to? Automatic? If not try that and see if the sound takes longer to start.

 

[The_J_Man]

Im beginning to think that its definetly the heat thats causing this crap. I put that cold pack underneath it and i got through the rest of the dvd. I recorded the temps that it started screwing up at:
Battery: 91.4F
Power Supply Bottomside: 138.2F
Processor Bottomside: 133.2F
Processor/Controller Bottomside: 136.4F
The last one: 104F
Ill try tomorrow and see which numbers start to match up, i think that when the heat of my powerbook moves towards the left speaker is when it starts to act up, as long as i can keep it cool it seems to be fine. Anybody know what the crap this thing is doing?

 

[trainguy77]

I looked around and i have seen that under normal connditions the temp should not go above 120F so something is wrong with cooling.

 

[The_J_Man]

I did a few test with a cold pack today, also it was really cold here so that helped. I made a lil chart of the temps, when it sais (bad) that meand the audio is going whack. The thing was, is that on the last test when everything started fading in and out i recorded the temps then brought the PB to the window to try and cool it down. on the chart i recorded the temps. i noticed that the only ones that wouldnt go down were the Smart disk thing (my hard drive Im guessing) or my battery. And so I put it to sleep and woke it up very quickly and the Smart Disk had gone down and was still going down, it didnt stop until it was at around 87. Take a look at the chart and see what you guys can make of it. maybe its something to do with my hard drive or the heating system related to it i dunno.

 

[trainguy77]

I think we are sure it is a heat problem. Now you have a couple options.

1. Take it into apple, have them charge you a couple hundred bucks and get it fixed or.....

2. If you are good with your hands and are ok with taking it apart then try that.
I think this might be your laptop:http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/PB_G4_15_AL_takeapart/AL_PB_G4_take-apart.html
Is this right? You could be just a dead fan. They die with time, I have seen many dead. But find a take apart guide if this is the wrong one. And make certain you have backups of all data, and that you use non magnetic screw drivers.

Also if something goes wrong, this is not my fault!


EDIT: Here is better manuals: http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/

 

[yenko]

I did a few test with a cold pack today, also it was really cold here so that helped. I made a lil chart of the temps, when it sais (bad) that meand the audio is going whack. The thing was, is that on the last test when everything started fading in and out i recorded the temps then brought the PB to the window to try and cool it down. on the chart i recorded the temps. i noticed that the only ones that wouldnt go down were the Smart disk thing (my hard drive Im guessing) or my battery. And so I put it to sleep and woke it up very quickly and the Smart Disk had gone down and was still going down, it didnt stop until it was at around 87. Take a look at the chart and see what you guys can make of it. maybe its something to do with my hard drive or the heating system related to it i dunno.

If you could get in there and put a tiny drop of oil on the fan bearing, spin it by hand........and.......

 

[The_J_Man]

Thanks guys, Ill take it apart when i can get my hands on some of the tools I need. I dont want to strip any screws or anything.