Disaster - feedback loop through internal speakers

I feel pretty much up sh*t creek right now - I had a gig file open in GP4 where I temporarily ran it with the internal speaker + microphone instead of the audio interface I regularly use.

Now the speaker volume is such that as soon as I open the lid, the whole thing SCREAMS LIKE MAD with feedback; it feels so loud I fear it’ll destroy the speakers in this very expensive laptop.

When it started feedbacking, I slammed the lid in panic, and now I can’t open it without this starting again. If I plug it in to the dock I have access to, I suspect it’ll start feedbacking again, even though the lid is closed.

It doesn’t help to plug in a blank cable to the headphone jack, because GP4 uses the audio inputs & outputs it’s set to, not what the system happens to be using.

Can anybody think of a way out of this? How can I restart the laptop without opening the lid? Is it even possible?

Open gig performer and then in the audio options disable the audio in and then open your gig file

Problem is that the session is open; the play button is pressed, it starts to sound with stuff that’s in the looping plugin I was running. I think I’ll rather have to reach quick as lightning for the volume down button and hold that until it goes silent.

You wouldn’t believe how loud this thing is…

OK, it’s solved. I took a plastic ruler; put a self-sticking furniture felt pad on the underside of it; measured on the wife’s identical laptop exactly where and how far to stick it in to make the felt pad end up precisely on the volume-down key. The whole thing was thin enough that I could get it in place before the lid came high enough to wake the laptop.

As soon as the feedback started, I pressed down and was able to lower the speaker volume to zero - whew …

I would have removed the battery😝

The thought of unplugging the battery crossed my mind, it sure did… but this turned out ok after all.

Happy is he who can easily remove the battery :grimacing: