Aluminium MacBook: Did you notice this?

CubaMark

I don't know if it's always on, or just happens when you plug in the audio cable, but the audio port's optical interface shines a red light out the port... just noticed it sitting in a dark room as aI went to plug in my headphones, and my hand turned bright red....

M

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Lars

All MacBook and MacBook Pros for years have had this red light in the audio optical port.

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dmartins

I haven't noticed this on my black macbook, but maybe the port near the audio out isn't an optical port..

Come to think of it, I guess the red light is what makes it optical!

whodisbe

I noticed that type of thing first on my Airport Express. Then I noticed my DVD player doing the same thing if I pushed the flap over the optical port open.

Pretty cool though, especially in a dark room.

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Jess.H

I noticed this a while back as well. Pretty cool to see in a dark room I suppose.

CubaMark

Okay, so, it's NOT COOL.

Seems the only reason I see the red light is because my Digital Audio Out is stuck ON (See related article)



The volume keys simply result in the "you can't do that" symbol overlaid on my screen (speaker with the stop sign w/ diagonal slash). System Preferences Sound pane also gives me no options.

Will follow some of the suggested fixes (just plug in / remove headphone jack a few times, reset SMC, others) and see if that fixes it...

EDIT: Ok. Minor thing. Plugging in the headphones and removing reset it for me. Some people haven't been so lucky, but it all comes down, apparently, to a micro switch inside that port that gets "stuck" somehow. Anyway....

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kaliber

heh that is pretty cool to see in the dark

kloan

Hey maybe if it's stuck on the stupid sound card will stop going to sleep and waking up constantly and causing popping and static noises through the speakers!!

I wonder how I can make mine get stuck....

Z06jerry

Kloan, did you try KeepSoundAwake yet? It works for me.

MBA - Pops and clicks

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hayesk

As someone who has worked in the optical networking industry, may I caution everyone to NOT look directly into the light. I'm not sure how much power is sent out by optical audio ports, but looking into a fibre optic cable used for networking (the light isn't visible anyway) can cause retinal damage in less than a second.

I'm sure the power in consumer audio ports is much less, but hey, better safe than sorry.