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Windows on New Macbook Pro Permanently Damages Speaker Due to Poor Drivers
- belltaco 10y agoWhy does the bios/firmware have no safeguard against this? Imagine a rogue program or virus damaging your hardware, even on OS X. Also, the headline is jumping to conclusions, this is what the poster wrote: " It is unclear what the source is, but most people are suspecting the deprecated audio driver on Windows."
- realkitkat 10y agoWell, that makes up for an interesting ransomware - you have 48h to pay up 4 btc or your shiny new mbp hardware will get borked.
- paulmd 10y agoI have to imagine that any self-respecting author would use '1812 Overture' just for style points.
- zlynx 10y agoWhat would the mechanism look like for a firmware fix? The driver doesn't go through any firmware to drive the audio.
- 2bluesc 10y agoSounds like the audio amp is too powerful for the speakers if it permanently damages it. I'm betting the amp is integrated into a multi function chip or codec where it was selected because of integrated features rather then matched to the required speaker power.
- dec0dedab0de 10y agoI'm betting the amp is integrated into a multi function chip or codec where it was selected because of integrated features rather then matched to the required speaker power. And the speakers were probably chosen for form factor.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- wpietri 10y agoHuh. So "we'll fix it in software" is the consumer device equivalent of the entertainment industry's, "we'll fix it in post"?
- Senji 10y agoYou have no idea. Faulty hardware? We'll fix it in the drivers.
- Scuds 10y agoor in the compiler :)
- jdcarter 10y agoYes, very much so. I work for a company making hardware products, and I can't tell you how many hardware screw-ups I've had to work around in software. Hardware is hard to fix: boards are expensive to respin and the cycle time is long. Software is just a recompile.
- baq 10y agoOf course, it's the only option that makes economic sense in most cases.
- wpietri 10y agoI think it's one of those things that makes short-term economic sense but can break a key feedback loop that leads you into long-term economic danger. It's sort of like the software industry dynamic of having a QA department. In some places, you have QA and they catch the occasional bug. The engineers take that seriously, work hard to improve, and avoid having the same kind of bug again. But in other places with QA, QA is expected to catch the bugs, so engineers just throw stuff over the wall. In places without QA at all, most engineering groups learn to self-manage quality, because when they don't they feel the pain. In effect, QA breaks the feedback loop between making a bug and organizational pain, meaning that the upstream organization loses its incentive to get and keep its shit together. This can happen in Hollywood, too, with "fix it in post"; people get sloppy. So my concern is that yielding to the short-term economic imperative could lead to an undisciplined hardware organization. Then you get long-term economic harm because you waste a lot of resources (and worse, lengthen your cycle time) due to having to fix a bunch of stuff in software. And that lack of discipline eventually leads to quality issues that you can't fix in post, or don't fix in post because they're too busy chasing obvious bugs to catch the subtle ones.
- eatmyshorts 10y agoMore than likely the op amp is not powerful enough and is being overdriven. Hard clipping, like when an op amp is being overdriven, is more likely to damage speakers than overpowering them.
- slantyyz 10y agoI wonder if using Boom [1] on OSX is dangerous on the new Macbook Pros. When I was still on Mac, that was one of the first apps I'd install, since they'd make the older Macbook internal speakers sound way better. [1] http://www.globaldelight.com/boom/index.php http://www.globaldelight.com/boom/index.php
- seanp2k2 10y agoA speaker which can handle 2 watts RMS on music material might very well blow up if fed 2 watts of square wave. The coil overheats since it's not moving. This is why clipping not only sounds bad, but is dangerous for drivers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio)
- dogma1138 10y agoThe amount of hardware issues with the new MBP are kinda staggering.... USB-C issues, GPU issues, image corruption, now this.
- slantyyz 10y agoHas there been as contentious a Mac release as there has been with the new MBPs? I've been using Macs since the mid 80s, and I'm trying to think of some, but am drawing a blank. The only possibilities I can think of are the two processor switches (680x0 -> PPC followed by PPC -> Intel) or maybe the first release of OSX (but that's not necesarily hardware related).
- dogma1138 10y agoGPU issues plagued some previous models also but not this early, usually after 1-2 years due to less than optimal thermal design, but Apple usually had an extended warranty program for those. I don't remember a release with so many weird issues, that honestly should've been picked up pretty early during the design and acceptance phases.
- slantyyz 10y agoYeah, the GPU issues - but like you said they didn't manifest themselves right away. I got hit by the 2011 MBP issue a year or so in. I had to buy a new laptop because Apple didn't issue the repair order until well after my AppleCare expired and I wasn't going to pay $500+ for the repair not knowing whether Apple would eventually pick up the tab.
- dogma1138 10y agoTBH not any less excusable since laptops should be tested in a thermal chamber and for a long duration, but PR wise it wasn't this bad. And what's worse it just hints a deeper issues, the 6/6plus bendgate and the more recent display gate were kinda meh, now this line which not only had some questionable design choices but also has multiple hardware issues. Things just seem to be broken.
- chx 10y agoThe damage here is much bigger than a few laptops. We have been trying to educate, encourage people to go and try everything ;) saying you can't write software damaging your hardware. This sort of bug violates that trust and IMO it's a big deal.
- coldtea 10y agoThat's a bizarro notion, and a moot point in any case, as very few people write audio drivers, which is the software in question. Besides, you could always write software that damages your hardware. For example you could kill your hard disk or SSD quite easily with bad file using code (just recently Spotify had a bug that could kill an SSD in a short period of time by writing TB of data), and lots of other things besides.
- slededit 10y agoNobody has ever claimed you could write drivers without damaging hardware. When I was writing my own toy kernel there were many warnings such as: "Probing memory-mapped PCI devices may have unpredictable results and may theoretically damage your system, so once again we discourage its use." 1 [1] http://wiki.osdev.org/Detecting_Memory_(x86) http://wiki.osdev.org/Detecting_Memory_(x86)
- oarsinsync 10y agoFollowup post showing Apple is willing to replace the devices damaged by their faulty drivers > https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5e7whh/update_bootcamp_driver_causing_blown_speakers_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5e7whh/update_bootca... and have since also updated their drivers > https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5e7whh/update_bootcamp_driver_causing_blown_speakers_in/daitcu8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5e7whh/update_bootca...
- hartator 10y agoI think I am starting to get worried about the future of Apple. 2016 was a bad year. New iPhone has been the worst selling one in relative numbers since the iPhone. New MacBooks has several issues and controversial choices, while not bringing anything substantial to the table. New Watch changes are so small, nobody noticed an update.
- Thane 10y agoThe volume button placement opposite of the power button...
- etatoby 10y agoMy Android phone has that and it's infuriating!
- rjtobin 10y agoI've ranted about this to friends but they didn't get it. Glad to know I'm not alone on this! Also the audio jack on the bottom: can no longer use headphones and prop the phone up on a desk when using FaceTime (which is surely a common use-case)
- deong 10y agoSee, I'm the opposite. I always wanted the headphone jack on the bottom because that's where it needs to be for the phone to go properly in my pocket.
- pricechild 10y agoIf screen rotation were free, surely you could both have what you want?
- rjtobin 10y agoProblem is that the camera is on top so if you rotate the phone and stand the phone on a surface, the camera is pointing in the wrong place.
- rplst8 10y agoFor the record, if the speaker is truly blown (ruined) this is a problem with the hardware - not the software. If you can't design a speaker and amplifier combination with a limiter that won't let itself self-destruct, you are an audio design failure.
- wrigby 10y agoI mostly agree on this, but I can also see how they got to a design that has this flaw. You can do better (more transparent, more adaptive, etc.) limiting in DSP than with a simple hardware circuit. Doing the limiting in the driver also saves you hardware components and PCB layout space. It's a slippery slope of optimization that only works when you control the OS (or drivers at least) and the hardware together, but one slip-up can be catastrophic.
- mikejmoffitt 10y agoA small micro or DSP processor can sit in the data path and solve this problem "in software, in hardware". It's unusual for software to be able to damage hardware for a consumer product.
- avian 10y agoOld Samsung ARM Chromebooks used to have a similar problem where some ALSA settings would overload and destroy the built-in speakers. Mine actually started smoking and melting after I installed Debian. https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/ https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-spea... I don't want to compare a $300 browser-in-a-box with a $2000 laptop, but issues like this aren't unheard of.
- rplst8 10y agoI can see your point, but this is one of the downsides to vertical integration.
- coldtea 10y agoMost speakers, even expensive $10,000 hi-fi ones or pro ones will get damaged in a similar way if the signal has sudden bursts, clipping etc.
- etatoby 10y agoThis makes me wonder if the Linux drivers have been damaging my (several years old) MacBook Air speakers. The sound always seemed to be louder and more distorted in Linux than in OS X, but I have never tested the level with a microphone.
- Const-me 10y agoI remember Dell laptops also had speakers permanently damaged, they blamed VLC software for that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759
- aq3cn 10y agoThat was three year old post. What is the status now? I know VLC allows playing 400% of original volume, and their cheap speakers cannot handle it. But Macbook Pro is an premium laptop. It should not be happening.
- pmontra 10y agoEven if at 400% volume the hardware shouldn't let through as much power as to blow the speakers. The waveform should be amplified and clipped to a safe value. The same applies to this Mac. If they know the sound chip can be tricked to send too much power, fix the sound chip or pick another one. If they didn't know, they didn't test their product.
- jimmies 10y agoInterestingly I have a Dell Chromebook 13 running full blown Linux and I am observing speaker distortion. It doesn't matter to me that much, but a bad driver could definitely cause damages to hardware.
- ulfw 10y agoIs there literally ANYTHING good about those new Macbook Pros?
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoThese laptops just keep getting better and better. Go Apple!
- aq3cn 10y agoIs there a possibility of happening this to headphone connected to Macbook Pro? Can that damage my ears due to loud sound?
- cbhl 10y agoEven with a properly functioning Macbook or iPhone, you can damage your ears if the volume is too high. In the EU, there are limits to how high you can turn up the volume in an attempt to prevent this.
- Cafey 10y agoYour (good) headphones most likely have a hardware limiter that prevents them for blowing up (of course there are exceptions I know)
- brazzledazzle 10y agoDoes anyone know if this was reported on radar and added to open radar?
- ceejayoz 10y agoHeh. The thread loaded up with an ad for /r/CatastrophicFailure for me. Bit on the nose, Reddit.
- WayneBro 10y agoThe actual content of those comments hasn't really been addressed by these quick fixes though. Does this fix the other numerous and varied complaints about the Macbook Pro? Does it change the fact that they're not doing anything that's noteworthy in a positive way? Does it fix slumping iPhone sales? Does it change the fact that more and more pro users are getting sick of the tyranny of Apple and moving away from them? Nope.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zepto 10y agoNone of your negative statements here are supported by any evidence, whereas Apple replacing computers and rectifying the software issue does actually address the problem.
- vaishaksuresh 10y ago>Does it change the fact that more and more pro users are getting sick of the tyranny of Apple and moving away from them? I don't know where you're getting this from. Between me and my family, I know of at least 6 tech companies that use tens of thousands of MBPs and most of the users there are professionals. The complaints we are seeing on reddit is not indicative of the number of laptops Apple is selling.
- sctb 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13064089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13064089 and marked it off-topic.
- WayneBro 10y agoHow exactly is this off-topic? How is the post I'm responding to is on-topic? That's fucking bullshit. Here's what the person I responded to wrote: > Seems like a reasonable and responsible solution to this issue. Perhaps the "Apple is imploding" comments were a bit premature. Then I responded that nobody actually addressed those "Apple is imploding" comments.... What the fuck is your deal man? Can't stand anybody who doesn't love Apple like you do?
- notadoc 10y agoHas there been any good news or sentiment about this new product?
- mmgutz 10y agoThe title suggests it is Windows damaging the speakers. When it's actually the bootcamp drivers provided by Apple correct?
- jxy 10y agoDid anyone try Linux or BSDs on it? Do they damage the speaker too? I don't expect Apple to release Linux or BSD drivers. So people should be very cautious on running other operating systems on new macbook pros from now on.
- teilo 10y agoI think this is more than a Bootcamp driver issue. I don't run bootcamp, but I do run Parallels, and I know exactly what they mean by the pops. I hear them whenever I am in Windows in Parallels. I never heard them on my old MBP. Theoretically, when in a VM, they should be mitigated by the macOS audio driver. However, if I am in Parallels, I am almost always connected to external speakers, so I don't know for sure. Parallels doesn't run the Bootcamp drivers, but perhaps the drivers are similar.