Ever since I bought my sweet white Mac Book, it’s existence has been threatened by a minor yet annoying little thing: the startup sound.
While the startup chime doesn’t bother me a bit, it drives my girlfriend mad, and her threats of throwing the damn thing away have been getting more and more frequent. As any Mac Book user out there knows, there’s no way to change the chime sound or disable it from within the system. Even plugging earphones before booting up fails, and if you don’t want to hear the annoying chime each morning, you’d have to carefully(or automatically) switch off the sound before shutting the computer off.
But all these worries are now gone, as today was my lucky day - randomly browsing macosxhints made me discover the little free application that’s bound to save my laptop’s life.
StartupSound.prefPane 1.1-BETA comes form Arcana Research Japan, is free and available at this link (direct download link here). Being a beta version makes it possibly unstable, but so far it worked out great on my Intel Mac Book.
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July 12th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
this tip saved my sanity!
July 12th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Perhaps there is a way to change it to some other sound.
July 12th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
BigDreams, as far as I know there’s no way one can change the chime startup sound on the MacBook. It’s built-in in the firmware and unless Apple updates the firmware to make it customizable, I don’t thing you can change it.
If anyone knows better, please drop a word!
July 13th, 2007 at 1:02 am
While the startup chime may annoy some people, it’s dead useful to others. I boot into multiple OS’s, so I need the chime to tell me when to go to startup mode. I also rarely shut my system down, so I don’t get bothered with that chime every morning.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Perhaps you should get a new girlfriend. If that’s what she’s complaining about now, wait one year. Then, you’ll wish you threw her out of the window.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:22 am
or you can just remember to MUTE your speakers before shutting down. your mac will remember and be quiet when you turn it on…
July 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Well, gunnar, I can’t manage to remember all the time to mute the volume before shutting the computer down. I did, from time to time, but not always. My guess is that the StartupSound tool does exactly this - when you shut down the computer it saveguards the old sound volume, then mutes it, then on startup sets the volume to the old value. It’s simple yet life saving.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
[...] Mac only: The signature Mac boot up sound can’t even be silenced by plugged-in headphones, but the Startup Sound preference pane does the job. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in class, on the plane or in the library, boot up in total quite with the Startup Sound preference pane. This plugin lowers the volume or mutes your Mac’s startup sound completely. It’s still in beta but worked like a charm on my MacBook Pro. StartupSound.prefPane is a free download for OS X only. StartupSound.prefPane [Arcana Research via Hack the Day] [...]
July 18th, 2007 at 7:17 am
[...] Mac only: The signature Mac boot up sound can’t even be silenced by plugged-in headphones, but the Startup Sound preference pane does the job. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in class, on the plane or in the library, boot up in total quiet with the Startup Sound preference pane. This plugin lowers the volume or mutes your Mac’s startup sound completely. It’s still in beta but worked like a charm on my MacBook Pro. StartupSound.prefPane is a free download for OS X only. StartupSound.prefPane [Arcana Research via Hack the Day] [...]
July 20th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
what the he…… guys that is what i looking for. I love my mac book but the fu… noise. it just terrify to my girlfriend too. we work in different shifts. i wake up early she late. so than u switch your second babe on. yes, the of the babes got a off/on button. but then after start babe number 2 babe number 1 makes a even louder sound. so why not switch babe 2 in quit modus.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:04 am
you would think that if you can silence the noise, there would be a way to overlay a sound on top of it. like just have it send a signal to the hard drive to overlay a sound on top of it or something. I don’t entirely mind the chimes, but I would like to be able to customize the sounds for my own personal enjoyment.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:55 pm
it’s annoying, especially on a late night porn search while your girlfriend sleeps.
thanks for that i’ll download it later.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Try holding down the mute button while pressing the power button until you see the apple logo! Works for me.
October 15th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
if you have optical input sound system, unplug the optical cord, turn the volume right down (or leave at least one) plug it back in and then the mac will only play at that volume on start-up
*this only works using optical because the device overrides the volume control on the computer.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
That would be nice too : GirlfriendLovingStartupSound.prefPane 1.0-BETA
(Kidding, I know that problem !
December 21st, 2007 at 10:42 am
You know, you should tell your girlfriend that the BONG you hear when you turn your Mac on means that it’s working properly.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:33 am
In case anyone wonders, the chime being impossible to ‘mute’ by plugging in headphones is a feature, not a bug. On my iBook I could avoid the chime by plugging in something in the headphone jack, but with the advent of the Intel Macs, this stopped working. Covering the speakers of the MacBook Pro doesn’t help in muting the sound (it mostly comes out of the fan exhaust).
If the above utility doesn’t work, there’s also something called “Psst” that does the same.
February 1st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
i just turned down the volume before i switched it off
then when i turned it back on i put it back up and since then its never made the sound and i dont have to turn it down again or mute it
who knows
maybe i got a lucky break
February 8th, 2008 at 3:44 am
what the hell is wrong with you people? who shuts down their mac? one of the most wonderful glorious aspects of owning a mac is that you NEVER HAVE TO SHUT IT DOWN. sleep is your friend…
Sure, it might need a reset every few weeks, but using sleep has many benefits:
1. you don’t have to tell it to shut down - you can close the lid (for notebooks), press the power button, then “s”. or just set it to go to sleep after a half hour.
2.it wakes MUCH quicker than it boots up. less time waiting for you, all your apps can still be open, waiting where you left them.
and
3. you don’t have to listen to the boot chime any more!!
man, shutting down and booting up your mac everyday, is like driving your car to work everyday, but running alongside it all the way there - you have a great technology and convenience, but you’re not using it!
the only thing you’ll find (as I have with a macbook) is in a library, even when you open the book from sleep, the optical drive still does its disc check which is almost as noisy!
get me an app that disables that… PLEASE!!
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hi Sam Kivi
I agree with you, I would never shut down my mac. But, what about the “doesn’t wake up from sleep mode” issue?
http://forums.macnn.com/69/macbook-pro-and-powerbook/194525/sometimes-my-mac-wont-wake-up/
Since 2 months i’ve this problem and my Apple rep could not fix it.
Well, maybe i’m opening another thread
March 18th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
what the hell is wrong with you people?
Nothing
who shuts down their mac?
I do. Got a problem with that?
Please get over yourselves with your Holier than thou, this is the ONLY way to use a Mac statements. If there wasn’t a need for this preference then there wouldn’t be so many posts online asking how to turn the Bong sound off.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:22 am
shutting down your mac saves energy. that should be reason enough to turn it off.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:30 am
amen to that, pantsheart - and happy belated Earth Day to you…
April 1st, 2008 at 1:38 am
That.. damn.. sound!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Unfortunately it doesn’t work to me… Maybe the stable version will fit…
April 26th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
this never worked for me (core 2 duo, tiger or leopard), but I found something that finally did work called “Psst” and it’s free:
http://www.satsumac.com/Psst.php
May 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Psst worked for me too, on a MBP 17″ (Core 2 Duo & 10.5.2)
May 15th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Works for me on Leopard, 10.5.2
Thanks!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:15 am
well you can shut your computer down wen you wont be needing it for a long period of time, whether that be over night, or if you will be out of town for a few days..what ever the case is. i leave mine in sleep when i am back and forth during the day to save energy, and shut it down overnight to save even more..
whatever works for everyone is what you should do, not force your own comfort zone on others!
and i usually mute my computer before i shut ‘er down… its in the process…
volume down
control+eject
shut down
lol but this app will help thanks!
June 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thanks man. It worked like charm for me. I have MacBook Pro 15″ 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
June 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
You are obviously going about it all wrong. You need to alter your behavior to conform to the way that Apple intends you to use your computer. Either a) stop shutting down your computer; b) turn the sound off before you shut down; or c) use a small sharp stick to “disable” your girlfriend’s ear drums. Problem solved.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Thank god there’s a way to get rid of this plague. It drives me mad booting up in a big open office space or sitting on a plane and this alarm goes off. I don’t even see the point of it. The fact that there’s no easy switch to turn it off is just mind boggling.
Thanks Alex! (I hope it works now…
)
July 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Btw…
People actually believe that the user should change ones behavior to use a tool just because it’s badly designed. A good tool is made to fit the user and his/her needs, not the other way around. An innovating company like Apple should know this - it’s called usability.
Or why don’t we all just stick to Dos?
August 26th, 2008 at 8:33 am
if it’s any consolation, that startup chime is not just a cute sound designed to delight you - it’s actually the result of a battery of diagnostic tests the Mac runs on its various systems - RAM, motherboard, video circuitry, etc. - at startup. if everything checks out, you’ll hear the familiar startup chord; if anything fails, you’ll hear…something else. exactly what the failure sound will be depends on which model of Mac you have; some of the things i’ve heard are minor chords and arpeggios (way back on my old Mac II) and the even more unnerving sound of screeching tires followed by a horrendous crash. so just remember, if your Mac won’t start up and you use any means of silencing the startup chord, you may be missing out on some audible feedback that could alert you to the nature of the problem.
on more recent hardware it’s also possible to mute the startup chord on a startup-by-startup basis by simply holding down the mute button on the keyboard until after the chord would normally have sounded.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:12 am
While the sound may be useful, I think it’s a terrible decision on Apple’s part if they are trying so hard to market their products to university students. Must be awful in a freshman double dorm room or library. I really can’t fathom why they make it so that it doesn’t just sound through your headphones. Stupid.
Anyway, thanks a million for this! It’s been driving me crazy since I am always bothering people when I forget that my headphones are plugged in and it “bonks” full volume at everyone. And to those who don’t shut down at night, stop acting like everyone else are the ones with problems when you’re wasting tremendous amounts of energy every night!
September 8th, 2008 at 8:51 am
regardless of what the function of the startup sound is or not - i do not need or want to hear that startup sound. i also shouldn’t have to search the internet looking for a hack to solve this problem. if apple didn’t engineer the function into their computers they could have at least provided me with a reliable fix.
stop blaming the customer. i don’t know of ANYONE who owns a mac or pc that likes hearing a startup sound on their computers. What’s worse, as some Kirsten said, us college kids get nailed everytime we startup our computers in class.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:53 am
tiger - the mac startup sound is not cute nor delightful
September 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hi
Are iMac’s different? On my silver iMac it doesn’t work. And that is right where it is most annoying. Contrary to popular beliefs, a Mac needs rebooting (Specially when you have kids that wants to play 3D games on it under Windows that won’t play under Parallels ….) Would be nice to have a solution there. But thanks for your trouble mate!!
Walter
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 am
Yay! True, windows needs to celebrate each boot. With the Mac it is just another day at work.
Thanks!
September 28th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I agree this is poor design on Apple’s part. I share my home office with a newborn, and the only chance I get to do work is when the baby sleeps. So guess what? I dread turning on my MacBook Pro because the thing wakes him up.
Why is this bong even necessary? My Windows computer very nicely remembers my wishes for it to keep quiet.
Maybe that fat “I’m a PC” guy in the advertisement knows a little more about having newborns around than the smarmy “I’m a Mac” guy.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Tiger,
If that startup sound is so essential, does it make sense that you can turn it off simply by turning the volume down before shut down?