Hiya,

Now you might think I'm mad, but I need to know if anyone else's N900's speakers located on the left and right sides of the phone hiss even no music or sound is playing?

I was browsing Maemo.org in total silence, when I noticed that my speakers were giving out a constant hiss. I held the device next to my ear and I heard it cleary.

I can't reproduce the "problem" after a reboot, but now I noticed that whenever a sound plays, the hiss goes on for a while and then cuts off as intended (?). During my problem it went on forever without anything causing the speakers to be active.

Can you help me spot the app/scenario causing this so I could fill out a bug report? I think fixing this could help with battery life.

software glitch that's all. Pretty normal symptom, you'll notice it hiss when you received a message or email if you use mp3 ringtone.

As maxximuscool said, it's got to do with the audio driver or something like that, and IMO I don't you get that much more battery life out of fixing it. Possibly it could extend the life of the speakers.

hiss are the after playback of tones and music and it happens to all my mobile devices.

Tested on mine after a few quite loud and noisy songs. No hissing at all.

Mine is not hissing, nor creaking. It plays music quite clearly, even on the speakers.
And also on headphones.

(Which, because I was an N95 owner previously, makes me very happy about the N900.)

For me, I have to go somewhere very quiet, and hold the speaker right next to my ear to hear the hiss. On headphones, I haven't found a pair with which I could hear my N900 hiss. (Or maybe I'm just becoming deaf)

This was a positive surprise, both my N810 (which I don't have anymore) and my 1st gen iPod touch had clearly audible noise from headphones, when they were supposed to be silent.

Edit: There already seems to be a bug report (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7504) , marked as WONTFIX. Seems it's power vs. latency issue.

Edit2: Ok, I read the OP again, missed the point first time. So the hiss doesn't stop after some idle time as it's supposed to? Have you been able to measure if it eats up battery faster?

Yes according to my experiences the speakers are on for a while after the sound has ended, but mine were hissing happily along indefinitely. No sounds had played for maybe about 30mins and still I heard the "after sound" hiss.

Well I guess I'm the only one then... let's see if it happens again.