Are you sure that's not the background noise when BGM is turned on at the set on but no music is on the channel?
Leave the phone on the hook and just briefly press the digit 1, does the noise go away?
Incidentally, there is no programming to load into any of the 816/1232 modules. The station expander has no RAM nor ROM, only a few ASICs and 8 sets of identical support circuits.
If you disconnect all other sets and station wiring from the 170 module and connect only one digital phone right at the field, does it work? If so, do all 8 digital ports work?
(remember, the first digital port is on pair 2 and every 3rd pair upward. (2,5,8,11,14,17,20,23) You only need the one pair from the digital port to the 2nd pair on the jack to run a 72xx or 74xx station.
A short on any digital pair will knock out the entire four in a sequence. (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, etc) The symptom is usually the other three phones tick and their LEDs flash very briefly as the sets try to boot but then everything dies again. They'll cycle through this forever until the short is removed from whichever station cable or set in the block of 4 has the fault.
Pat MacKinnon
Omni Telecommunications Inc.,
London, Ontario, Canada