Mac Mini :: Popping / Crackling When Connected To Stereo
Jul 6, 2010
I am using a Mac Mini with my home theatre set-up and when the Mac Mini is connected to my stereo using a 3.5mm Stereo Plug/2 RCA Plug Cable I get constant crackling and popping from the speakers. I've tried a new cable (didn't help) and tried plugging the Mac Mini in to a different outlet.
The cable connection at the back of the Mac Mini feels a bit loose but it seems like that's the way it's supposed to be rather than any sort of hardware issue.
My brand new 2.8 8-core mac pro arrived a couple of days ago, and needless to say its great..for the most part It's standard spec but with the 8800GT and the airport card.Although I use it with OSX for most things, I need to be running Vista for the odd bit of gaming, and more importantly for software development (still need Visual Studio and .NET)So i've installed Vista x64, installed the bootcamp drivers, and then updated the graphics to the latest Nvidia drivers
I have yet to buy external speakers for my intel IMac, however, I am noticing more and more a very annoying "crackling or popping" every so often... random "crack/pop"... what is going on? The machine is still under warranty if this is a serious problem... but boy it really is annoying when it happens.
I have a mac mini coming this week which will replace my appleTV in the lounge.
I have some questions about how to hook it all up to give me as much flexibility as possible.
I'll be connecting to my HDTV (Sony 40W4000) via HDMI (using a DVI-HDMI adapter). I realise this won't give me audio.
I run my satellite box, DVD player and appleTV through a HDMI switcher to the TV, so firstly, will the mac mini play nice with a switcher box?
Secondly, is there any way of getting audio both to my TV in stereo, and to my amp via optical? Thinking not as there is only one audio output socket which is either 3.5mm line out *or* optical toslink.
If not, then my TV would take precedence as i'll mostly be using it to watch TV. I haven't checked my TV manual yet, but how have people found using separate audio feeds (L/R RCA) into a TV that has HDMI? I'm concerned that the mini audio might bleed through when I'm watching satellite TV or a DVD - how does the TV know when to use that audio vs using HDMI? Not even sure my TV can take a separate signal.
How are people getting audio to their TVs? Might I need to look at using VGA (although that'll have issues with exact scan etc at least it should let me input separate audio, with the bonus of PiP)
Lastly, if I am forced to pipe optical to my amp as the only way to get audio from the mini, does it pipe everything down optical or only 5.1 soundtracks etc? eg are system sounds sent down optical as stereo, and will normal stereo soundtrack movies (mp4/.avi etc) play ok?
Anyone point in me in the correct direction to stream my iTunes music either thru my AV receiver or PS3?
I'm going to install and set up my Airport Express. Do I need to connect from AE to receiver via mini-stereo to rca cable/toslink cable or can I somehow connect wirelessly to my PS3 and go from there?
I'm trying to set up a dual boot, Windows 7 64-bit and Lion install on a 2011 Mac Mini. I have Windows installed and completely up to date, with up to date Boot Camp drivers. Unfortunately, I get no sound from the internal speaker or by plugging headphones or speakers into the speaker jack. I do hear the startup chime on boot, and have sound in OS X. Windows thinks it has the right driver for the sound card, and lists Speakers - High Definition Audio Device in the Playback tab of the Sound control panel, and it is the default device. If I click "Test" the level bounces as if sound is being output, but I hear nothing.Â
As a test, I found I do get sound out of the HDMI port when I plug it into my TV, but this computer will need to be in an office with either stereo speakers attached or using the built in speakers in the mini.
I started to notice a "popping" noise (about 1 Hz) when I got external speakers for my Mac Mini. It occurs when the Mac is sleeping and the external screen is on (but sleeping its own "sleep"). If I disconnect the analog audio out (from where the external speakers take their signal) the popping ends. If I connect headphones to the same jack, I hear no popping in them. If I hit the power button on the external screen and power it down, the popping ends. It will not return even though I power the screen on again.If I disconnect the USB cable that power the speakers from the Mac, the popping ends, but returns when I connect again.Â
Just a warning, I bought a Mac Mini (2009) and wanted it to hook it up to my TV. My TV does not have HDMI or DVI inputs so I bought a Mini DVI to Video adapter from Apple.But I could not get it to work, then I googled for it and it seems this adapter does not work with 2009 Mac's since it does not output an analog signal anymore!
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So anyone that wants to hook up his new Mac to an older TV set with the Video adapter, you are warned.I guess i'll have to buy a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter and then a VGA to SVIDEO converter..
I have a little internet problem. My mac mini does not recognise my ADSL modem, so I can only connect in a PC, and then plug an ethernet cable to connect my mac, with the pc, then I can use internet on my mac. I think that I'll buy a news usb internet modem, but for now on, I would like to use Parallel desktop (witch run very good ) to connect my mac on the internet. Problem : When the windows xp of my parallel desktop is connected to the internet, my mini mac is not, even if I tried all the networking option available.
without connecting it to through the ethernet of the Mini? Yes or No? USB Modem connected to the Mac Mini Time Capsule connected wirelessly to the Mac Mini. can this work to produce a Wi-Fi network in my apartment?
I am considering replacing my G4 Mac mini, which is used primarily as a desktop. It turns out that my computer desk is very close to my Sharp Aquos LC32GA5U TV. With the right adapters, it should be possible to have my monitor and TV connected to the new Mac mini at the same time. The DVI/HDMI cable to my TV should be about 12 ft. I have some questions about a setup like this. Will a video cable of this length cause any issues? My TV will not be turned on all the time. Does Leopard recognize the fact that a display is turned off and prevent apps from putting their windows on it?
I have a new Mac Mini connected to an older VGA monitor using the Apple brand VGA adapter. The mini is fully up to date and runs perfectly when booted. However, if I reboot the mini with the VGA monitor connected, it fails to boot. I just hear the faint chime sound every other second. There is no output to the monitor and the only way I can get it to boot is to disconnect the monitor and then power cycle the mini. I can reconnect the monitor just seconds after powering back on and it finishes booting properly.Â
I've also tested with an HDMI connected monitor (without the VGA adapter) and it boots just fine and the display works properly. Â
I want to watch movies from my hard drive or disc drive of my Mac is OS X version 10.6.5 3.06GHz Intel core duo 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3, on my panasonic viera plasma tv.
I am still getting used to Appple with my new Mini. I am still missing stuff I would like to have on the Mini. Like the icon in the task bar on window OS / You know, the icon that show when my internet is connected???? the little tv screens..... I found a Icon site. but do not understand what some of them are. I am also having difficulty understanding how to bookmark easily in Safari like I do with Firefox etc?
Safari does not seem to offer me the option to bookmark a page and "choose "exactly where to place it. and also make a new folder in bookmark menu> all in one operation>>> also cant seem to get my bookmarks to stay in the left of screen. when open bookmark they open in a whole window... instead of on the left side of screen in folders ;like I am used to in XP. also is there a built in image capture program in Apple software... like "Hoversnap" In my window mchs ? I push the shift key and "print screen" keys at the same time and it save screen shots.
I have a 2009 Mac Mini connected to a 22" LG monitor via Mini-DVI port and it's also connected to a 50" Pioneer Plasma (in the next room) via Mini-Displayport. Everything works perfect except that when I turn off the Pioneer Plasma, my mouse can still scroll over from the LG monitor to the Plasma.
I've also noticed that my screensaver is laggy even when the Plasma is turned off (usually that happens when it's drawing the screensaver on both screens) so it must still be sending a video signal out of the Mini Displayport.
Got 2011 Mac mini and connected via HDMI to 15 months old Samsung 46 inch LED TV using 1080p and 50Hz. From start (dec 2011) I have had the problem that occationally (>50% of the times) the TV starts to flicker heavily. It is "war of the ants = cannot see anything" on the TV for like 3 seconds and then I can see the desktop clearly for around 3 seconds an then it is back to the flicker.screen. It keeps on like that until I shut-down and restart the Mac mini. Sometime restart works an sometime it does not. Anyone with similar problems that know what to do?
computer is connected to cable modem & router. There are 2 other computers on the same router, they other computer connect fine. I have swapped the working connections with the mac mini in question. Restarts don't always correct the problem. cleared safari history, reset cache, repaired permissions,etc. Computer will work for anywhere between 5 minutes to 1 hour, then lose the internet connection. Using same computer to manage iphone4s (if that matters)
My original A1174 Mac Mini crashed about 3 weeks ago. I was running OSX 10.4 on it. I removed the hard drive and put it into a Rocketfish enclosure yesterday. Now, I'm connecting it via USB to another A1174 Mini running OSX 10.5.8, and trying to see if I can salvage any of the data on the old hard drive, but haven't been successful. Can I access this hard disk externally?
I am having the darndest problems with routing on my internal network, specifically with my Mac Mini Server which originally came Snow Leopard Server and was upgraded over the top (no clean metal) wtih Lion and Lion Server (10.7.4) Router is a Cisco/Linksys E4200 with firmware 1.0.04, but have had same problems with 1.0.02 and 1.0.03.Internal LAN/WiFi is defined as 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0. Router is 10.0.0.1 and gateway. DNS is supposed to be served by the Mac Mini on 10.0.0.7, which also hosts my DHCP server to configure others on my home network.
With WiFi off on the Mac Mini "netstat -rn" returns essentially the same thing as on my Mac Pro (10.7.4 not-server) but for the MacPro at 10.0.0.3. In this condition the Mini will ping the MacPro and I can ssh between, through the ethernet switch on the E4200. The MacPro can ping the E4200 but the Mac Mini can not. The E4200 has some ports opened to forward to the Mac Mini.But, enable WiFi on the Mac Mini and suddenly the ethernet starts working through the E4200.
Sometimes I can change the static IP address on the Mini's ethernet with WiFi off and then it starts speaking to the E4200 and internet. For instance tonight I changed it to 10.0.0.8 and it didn't work. But 10.0.0.6 did. Moved it back to 10.0.0.7 and it still didn't work trough the router but it did work internally Mini to MacPro through the enthernet switch on the E4200.
My Mini Mac (early 2006) was working ok till 2 days ago when the boot times went into the 4 minute range with the USB CD printer from primera pluged in. I check the firm ware on both devices and they are current.
This is my first post, I hope I am sending it to the right place. I want to use a new mac mini (not yet purchased) as a compute node to run day and night on some modeling code. I don't want to connect a keyboard or monitor - but I have access to these to set things up. The model accesses data on the internet, and I want to connect (wired or wireless) to my cable modem to get at these. Once set up and running I just need ssh access to see how things are going and scp to copy stuff onto and off of the mini. I have a MacBook that I plan to use for this purpose, that I want to connect wirelessly to the mini. Is this possible? Is it difficult? I don't really want to shell out for expensive remote desktop software when I only need terminal type access to the mini - to check on progress, copy stuff on/off and compile programs.
Using an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, when I lock my screen (using the Keychain Access dropdown menu method) and leave my computer for an extended period of time (a matter of hours), the keyboard disconnects and thus, I cannot enter my password when I return. I checked the Bluetooth set up options and while I realize this is likely due to battery life concerns for the keyboard, is there anyway to keep the keyboard connected while not in active use? Is there a screen locking method that still allows me access to the Bluetooth set up menu when locked?
My Mac mini is connected to a Samsung widescreen (1360x768) display using mini port to VGA adapter. When starting, the both sides of the screen is not used, left black. Mac mini thinks the display is a 4:3 display, but does not recognize this as a 16:9 display. What can I do?
I hooked my Mac mini to a new monitor and now the wireless magic mouse will not work, although is says it is connected, it seems to be stuck on the top line.
