Sound cuts in and out.

**norrina** · May 19th, 2006, 08:47 AM

I am hopeful that someone might be able to walk me through troubleshooting this.

I have a PowerBook G4 with 10.4.5, purchased as a refurb from Apple in January of this year.

Yesterday while watching videos the sound was fading in and out, and I initially thought it was a problem with the video quality. When I used my iTunes this morning though, the problem persisted.

The sound is fine when connected to external speakers.

I haven't done any troubleshooting at all because I don't know where to begin. Anyone?

**norrina** · May 19th, 2006, 09:15 AM

Oh. I think my computer was just telling me I had been a bad, neglectful person; I rebooted and all is well with my world...

Carry on.

**norrina** · May 20th, 2006, 09:12 PM

That appears to have been a temporary fix; the problem has resurfaced, and rebooting no longer helps.

**nixgeek** · May 21st, 2006, 08:09 AM

Have you tried backing up your files and reinstalling OS X? YOu could also do an Archive and Install if you can't backup your files. This will leave your files intact while replacing the System folder and associated files.

**norrina** · May 21st, 2006, 11:55 AM

Guess I better go pick up some more DVDs; I have a pretty good number of music files to back up.

**nixgeek** · May 21st, 2006, 12:18 PM

Well, before doing that you might want to boot from the OS X install discs that you have and run the Disk Utility. Boot from the discs by holding down the C key after the Mac startup chime (this is assuming that the disc is already in the drive). Once you're at the welcome screen for the installation, head to File and select ot Launch Disk Utility. Once Disk Utility comes up, highlight your Macintosh hard drive and select to repair disk. Also, you might want to Repair Permissions. Once the repair says that the volume is OK and that all permissions have been repaired, reboot from the hard drive and see if that improves things.

Hope this helps.

**norrina** · May 25th, 2006, 09:18 PM

Do I need to backup everything before I try this, or should my files be safe? I know I really need to create backups just as standard procedure, but I don't see that happening unless I can maybe get to it over the long weekend.