I have an iBook dual USB, which has a built-in microphone at the top-right of the display. I would like to be able to record meetings clearly with this microphone. Unfortunately when I turn the gain of the microphone right up (which I need to do in order to capture quiet conversations), I can hear a buzzing sound.
The buzzing sound mostly goes away if I set the display sleep time in System Preferences → Energy Saver to a small amount (the minimum is 1 minute) and wait for it to power off, so I’m guessing that the LCD refresh generates noise in the mic. If I simply turn the screen brightness down to zero, the noise doesn’t go away, I assume because this only turns off the screen backlight and the image is still being refreshed.
So I’d like to be able to press a button and have my iBook display sleep immediately.
I’ve had a look through the various system dictionaries but can’t find anything. Does anyone have any hints about how I might achieve this?
Thanks jj… but those commands seem to send the whole machine to sleep.
I want only the display to sleep, not the whole machine, as I’d like to use the machine to record sound (so it’ll need to be awake), and the display generates noise.
That is… I’d like to be able to put the machine into the same state that it is in after a minute when the display sleep time is set to 1 minute: display sleeping, processor and HD active… but without waiting a full minute.
Is that a bit clearer?
Yes, I have an iMac (lime green) as well, and it does make a lot of noise (hard disk I think mainly as it doesn’t have a fan). The iBook is wonderfully silent to my ears, though… but the display is generating some noise that is audible to the internal mic.