Apple TV (1) sounds like a drill

n-j

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Morning all. I have an ATV1 I bought via ebay with boxee and xbmc already installed. I can play atv content, content from the hard drive and through youtube etc but when I stream I get an awful sound like a drill. I can't help thinking it's something obvious that I should be able to sort quickly but I just don't know what it is.
If I stream via wifi or ethernet, through xbmc or boxee it's all the same. And from my laptop hard drive or NAS.. also the same.
Here's a short vid to better explain the sound i'm getting

cheers
nj
 
hang on.. I just found a couple of avis on the atv's hard drive that play with the crazy sound too. aghhh!
 
Have you tried unplugging the ATV ?

It's the only way to reboot the ATV1 so I'd give that a go at least.
 
thank for your reply. yes i've had it powered off and on at various points and even installed a crystal HD card today but it's still the same.
 
One way to know for sure if it's a hardware or software issue is swap out the HDD inside it and then install Crystalbuntu on the new HDD. This will give you a linux OS that boots straight into XBMC, if the problem persists then it could be a hardware problem. Be sure to read the docs on how to configure audio in XBMC..

If you don't have a 2.5" IDE HDD spare you can use ATVCloner to make a backup of the drive but it requires OSX. ATVcloner has it's own linux/xbmc image too but Sam's Crystalbunutu will install from patchstick on any HDD.
 
thanks mate, I really appreciate the advice. Actually I think I have a 320Gb 2.5" HDD in a cupboard. Are there any limitations on how large the HDD can be? Do I need to format it before installing or will some kind of bios read the Crystalbuntu installer on the flash drive and reformat it before installation?
 
Just plug in the drive and use the Crystalbuntu patchstick it will auto erase the drive and do everything for you.
 
thought I'd update this thread in case anyone ever has the same problem and searches (..hears, "using the search function on a web forum eh? novel idea") :p

So anyway, because I bought the atv1 with xbmc and boxee already installed they were both set to output dts audio. I don't have an external device so I needed to reset to hdmi audio in both apps. simple fix and I felt a bit stupid for not realising.
I then installed a crystal HD card and was stumped as to why none of my mkvs will play without stuttering but it looks like it's down to the MKVs using dts audio. So because I don't have that external audio device I'm a bit stuck.. for now. I just need to decide what I need to buy now for audio/mkv happiness. any suggestions?

cheers
nj
 
In XBMC deselect you have a DTS capable receiver and it should transcode the audio to Dolby AC3.

Did you try Crystalbuntu, CrystalHD works much better under linux than under AppleOS.

If your a Boxee user the Boxee Box is the best option.
 
Can I make a Crystalbuntu with windows? I would have done so already but thought it has to be done from a mac. It's definitely worth a bash.
cheers
 
Yes grab the Windows installer here,
* generate the Crystalbuntu patchstick,
* plug patchstick into AppleTV
* must be connected via ethernet as well for internet
* power on the ATV and everything's automated after that

Remember this auto erases everything on the AppleTV HDD.
 
brilliant, thanks mate. I'll have a bash this afternoon. Similar process to installing the crystal hd card then.
on a side note I bought a second 2TB HDD for my dlink sharecenter and it wouldn't format the drive. Finally managed to get it formatted and set up as Raid 1 to mirror the 1st drive... and wiped everything! haha. nuts. replenishing the movie content is no problem but I can't remember a fraction of the music collection I had. lesson learned.. don't do these things late at night when your brain has buggered off to bed an hour beforehand and left autopilot in charge of basic motor skills.
 
nuts. the installer isn't working. I can see the code being executed but after a couple of minutes the screen goes black and then nothing. I tried leaving it overnight like that in case it was working but nope... everything's still there on the original hdd as before. The comments at stmlabs.com seem to suggest this isn't unusual for the original 40 gig hdd. aghhhh!
 
If you don't have another drive to test with you could try erasing the ATV drive manually, plugged into another computer using Gparted then see if it continues on with a blank drive in the ATV.

You can generate a USB stick that boots Crystalbuntu instead of installing to HDD.
 
thought I had a spare 320 gig hdd but turns out the atv1 doesn't take a sata drive. nuts. i think it'll be easiest to pick up a spare hdd since i don't have any way to connect the existing one to my laptop. Is there a specific type of hdd I should be looking for?
i previously used a usb stick to boot fronm so I might try a different/faster one to see if it makes a difference.
cheers for your help by the way. it really is apprecited
 
USB is always going to be slower there's no way around that.

As to the type of HDD all you need is a (PATA) IDE 2.5" HDD and you should be good to go from that.
 

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