Intermittent computer beeping.

Factual Questions
1

I got a new computer with Windows 7 Ultimate the other week and it works really well, except for one thing I just can’t seem to get any headway with. Every once in a while the internal speaker will sound a short beep, much like you would get when you filled the text buffer on an old DOS system. Needless to say, that’s not what I’ve been doing here, and sometimes it has sounded several times with a minute or two in between while idly displaying the Windows desktop. Other times I’ve used the computer for half an hour and then for no apparent reason it beeps once or twice.

Performancewise the system is awesome, but the beeping is starting to get a bit annoying and I’d like it to stop, only I’m not at all sure what might be causing it. Everything from BIOS to 3DMark Vantage indicates things are in tip-top shape, and there are no conflicts or other issues reported in the Windows Control Panel, so I don’t even know where to begin error-checking.

Here are the specs, by the way:

Cooler Master HAF 932 Big Tower Black Fans: 1x 230mm Front, 1x 230mm Top, 1x 230mm Side, 1x 140mm Rear, Red
Chieftec Super Series 650W PSU ATX 12V V2.3, 80 Plus, Modular, 1x 6pin+1x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 140mm fan
Intel Core™ i5 Quad Processor i5-750 2,66GHz, Socket LGA1156, 8MB, Boxed
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz 4GB CL9 Kit w/2x 2GB XMS3 modules, CL9-9-9-24, for Core i5 and i7, 1.65V, Intel XMP
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3, P55, Socket-1156 4xDDR3, ATX, GbLAN, 4phase power, PCI-Ex(2.0)x16
XFX GeForce GTX 260 576M 896MB PhysX PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI, HDCP, Graphics Plus, 55nm, 576/2000MHz
2 Hitachi Deskstar P7K1000 500GB, 7200RPM,16MB Cache, SATA

2

Some computers beep when they overheat. You can check your BIOS settings to see if it has an option like this, and see what temp it is set to beep at. It could be that the default beep temp is set too low or it could be that your CPU is really running too hot.

3

I’ve looked over all the BIOS settings and the CPU warning threshold is at 70 degrees Celsius while the actual temperature reported is below 40, so I should be quite safe on that point. All the fans are spinning and the RAM timings are right on manufacturer specifications. Besides, there really doesn’t appear to be any hardware issues, I just played the Dirt 2 demo for about half an hour without a glitch and there were no beeps, but I’ll still get them every now and then while just browsing the web.

I did notice that multithreading was enabled in the BIOS settings so I disabled it, the Core i5 CPU does not support that feature anyway and doing so has had no effect on performance that I’ve noticed, but it also hasn’t had any effect on the beeping.

4

Well, it looks like you were on the right track after all. I disabled the thermal warning on the basis that I had already tried everything else I could possibly think of, and it’s been quiet ever since so I guess there must be a fault in the temperature sensor. Not that I really think I’m going to need the warning anyways, I put it through a 32 million decimal marathon session in SuperPi yesterday and didn’t even get the CPU to break 50 degrees, so I reckon it should be safe enough to leave it disabled.

5

Haha, I was going to guess someone sicced the Annoy-o-tron on you.

6

Here’s what worked for me with MY random beeping events, which:

• were happening with ANY browser use (Firefox 3.6x, 3.5x, and IE8 32 & 64 bit versions, so not browser-specific or Flash-related)

• had only been occurring for a few hours when I started troubleshooting last night (however, a System Restore to a prior point had no effect)

• happened again immediately upon first browser use this morning (therefore not a CPU overheating issue)

• were Windows .wav beeps (coming through the speakers), not motherboard-failure beeps.

I was up until 2:30 a.m. doing all the above analysis/troubleshooting, then decided to sleep on it. When the cold boot this morning proved it wasn’t an overheated PC, I got a strong hunch it was recently installed software…but not a plug-in, or a different browser without that plug-in should have been beep-free.

So, I asked myself, what had I installed recently that could be triggering this beeping? Turned out to be a little freeware network traffic monitoring program, BitMeter 2, that was set by default to provide AUDIO notifications of any up/download traffic over 1Mb (which is not a very large amount, the way I surf!). A quick click in BitMeter’s Settings disabled that pesky beep, and so - just to do my part for community sanity - I’m posting this info on some of the many forums where I Googled while troubleshooting.

Hope that this info will help you solve your BEEPING problems, or at least spark some ideas. Good luck!

7

It’s far more likely to be your video card than the CPU. Check the GCU temps, if that’s overheating you’re due for a big bill really soon …

8

I did this on a Pentium D box and it disabled the second core.

I would echo Laiki’s suggestion about checking for little utilities that are set to an audio alarm. Skype, Messenger, etc.