ACER CXI3 Has Intermittent Audio Problems

GilmorTuttle1

In the past week, several of our Acer CXI 3 Chromeboxes have been experiencing audio problems.  Suddenly, the audio does not work and there is a humming sound that comes out of the speakers.  This problem occurs randomly and we can not intentionally reproduce it.  Also, the problem only seems to occur with wired speakers that use the jack on the front.  Bluetooth speakers seem to work with no issue.

billsey

I don't see anything obvious in terms of the hardware that could give that symptom. The audio jack is driven by a Realtek ALC5662 codec chip and the jack is soldered directly to the motherboard. I believe that points toward software then, which is under Google's purvey. If there were wires between the jack and the motherboard I could see the potential for an issue with either corroded contacts are a connector working loose, but nothing like that seems to be possible. Try contacting Google support to see if they are getting any other reports of issues with the Realtek audio chips.

CLee

I have been using  chromebox  CXI3-UA91 connected to a TV for  1 1/2 years and it works fine.

Few weeks ago after an OS update the chromebox started to have  audio problem:

Quite suddenly voice messages won't play  and videos (from chrome browser) won't play unless you mute the audio.  You have to reboot to fix the problem and soon the same thing happens again.

It has been going on for a few weeks now and surprisingly the most recent os update does not fix the problem.

JackE

As billsey already suggested, I'd also try google support for advice since it's affected several machines just after the ChromeOS update. So it doesn't sound like a hardware issue. You may have to rollback to the immediate past version using a stand-alone ChromeOS version setup file.

GilmorTuttle1

@billsey we have several of these machines and the issue is happening on all of them, so I agree, it is unlikely that it would be a hardware issue unless all these machines coincidentally had the same problem at the same time.  I have been reaching out to Google and they do not seem to have any idea about the issue (at least they have not had an idea).  @JackE the problem began with OS 102...I had rolled it back to OS 101 and it was working fine.  The machines just kept on looking to update and it was difficult to keep people from updating.  Thanks.

JackE

>>> the problem began with OS 102...I had rolled it back to OS 101 and it was working fine.  The machines just kept on looking to update and it was difficult to keep people from updating. >>>

It's possible Google and/or Acer will eventually fix it with updates if enough complaints roll in. I wouldn't hold my breath though. Unfortunately, these older Acer budget boxes didn't seem to be wildly popular, so probably won't be enough to trigger any action.  About all you can do is keep checking/hoping the Acer update downloads at this link  will finally address the issue. Sorry not to sound more optimistic. 

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/7665?b=1