Chirping (Squeak) on PowerMac G5 2Ghz Dual processor

Question

After upgrading to Mac OS? X Tiger (OS 10.4.Innocent I"m hearing a repeating chirp , beep, or squeaking sound from my PowerMac G5. How do I get rid of it? While we can only confirm this on the 2Ghz dual processors, it's reasonable that the condition may exist on other PowerMac G5 machines.

Requirements

PowerMac G5 2Ghz dual processor, Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.0.



Background

The repeated chirping, beep or squeak was a recurring issue in 2004 and appears to have reappeared in Mac OS X Tiger. In some cases the sound may seem to be intermittent, only appearing under heavy processor loads. However, since many of Tiger's new features such as Dashboard Widgets and Spotlight appear to be causing fairly heavy system loads, it's not unlikely the sound may appear all the time.

While the sound isn't particularly loud, it can be annoying and although it's not particularly clear what exactly is causing the sound there are two methods to get rid of it. Any additional news regarding the cause of the sound or alternative methods on how to correct it will be posted here.

What to do

There are two methods to shut off that annoying chip-beep-squeak which are simple to do. If Option A doesn't work for you, try Option B.

Option A: Use the System Preferences... → Energy Saver

  1. Choose Apple menu → System Preferences...
  2. Choose Energy Saver
  3. Press the Options button
  4. Choose Automatic from the Processor Performance pop up menu
  5. the sound should stop immediately



While we haven't been able to perform any sort of conclusive speed and performance tests, this method can potentially reduce overall performance, if only slightly. However, it does successfully shut off the annoying sound which may be worth the potential trade-off. Option B described here uses a different method which allows the Energy Saver System Panel to be set to high and still shuts off the beep-chirp-squeak sound.

Option B: Install Apple CHUD Tools
CHUD (Computer Hardware Understanding Developer Tools) are intended to help developers tweak performance of their applications running in Mac OS X. While there are many aspects to what CHUD Tools can be used for, in the context of this problem were interested in only one - the Processor System Preference Panel it installs. The primary benefit to this method is the Energy Saver Processor settings can be set to HIGHEST without hearing the beep-chirp-squeak.

CHUD Tools are included on your Mac OS X Tiger master install DVD or you can also download Apple's CHUD tools from version tracker.com. Simply visit the Version Tracker website XTNL URL and search for CHUD.

Stage one: install CHUD Tools

  1. insert the mac OS X Tiger Install DVD
  2. double click the Xcode Tools folder icon
  3. review the About Xcode Tools.pdf file
  4. double click the XcodeTools.mpkg icon
  5. follow the screen prompts until you see the Select Destination Screen
  6. click on your hard drive with Tiger installed
  7. press the Continue Button
  8. Press the Customize button
  9. Check CHUD Tools and press Upgrade/Continue

Or screen shot here shows the upgrade button since we already have the XCode tools installed.
[inline:Chirp02.jpg]


Stage two: set the Processor System Preference Panel

  1. After stage one is complete - restart your computer
  2. choose Apple menu → System Preferences
  3. click on the Process system panel (bottom of the dialog box)
  4. Uncheck the Allow Nap check box
  5. the sound should stop immediately
  6. This setting doesn't stick: it must be reset each time the computer is restarted

Here's what the Processor settings should look like
[inline:Chirp03.jpg]


Update: May 31, 2005:
We've noticed that after restarting it's usually necessary to go back to the Processor System Panel and Uncheck Allow Nap again. So - if you've turned off Allow Nap and restarted your computer, you may not be hearing things - the chirp could have returned.

We've used both methods and the sound has disappeared - in our case we prefer Option B which allows us to disable allow nap to remove the sound using CHUD tools and still level the Energy Saver Processor setting set to Highest.

We hope that helps
caddpower.com

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