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In Windows, from time to time I get this funny noise.

What is the source of it?

Does anybody recognize it?

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IS this coming from the computer? The speakers? – Simon Sheehan Sep 9 '11 at 19:40
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Have you got Juicy Steaks Poker (SpyWare) installed on your computer? I've had a few clients suffer from this, and their computers were exhibiting weird little sounds from time-to-time, like cards being shuffled, until after the SpyWare was forcibly removed. – Randolf Richardson Sep 9 '11 at 19:50
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It could come out of either. Turn off your speakers and see if it persists. – Simon Sheehan Sep 9 '11 at 19:50
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@Randolf Richardson the point you make about malware and -particularly - cards being shuffled was interesting and kind of coincided with a NOD scan I was doing.. I suspect your comment was the first to mention it. you could post it as an answer and i'll accept it. The fact that you recognise a cards shuffling sound is interesting. – barlop Sep 9 '11 at 21:08
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I just heard it again, this is going to take a long long time to pinpoint. – barlop Sep 9 '11 at 22:03
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5 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

Found it.

It's the dog in XP's search. If you can catch him when he's scratching himself you hear it.

I proved it, I opened many search windows, watched the dogs, the noise comes at the same time as a dog scratches himself. You can see a culprit in the screenshot.

So go to change preferences within the search box and turn off the animated search character.

Sometimes search opens accidentally when I go to click Run. But all it takes is one to open up.

enter image description here

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+1: Man's Best Friend. Arf Arf! – surfasb Sep 9 '11 at 23:51
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lol, amusing answer. Good to know you found it anyway, – Sathya♦ Sep 11 '11 at 12:20
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Wow, just wow. I always found that stupid dog much worse than Clippy: at least Clippy was excellent at finding stuff (compare with searching help in current Office) – Mark Sowul Sep 16 '11 at 21:09
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up vote 3 down vote

I don't really recognise the sound, but, I think it can be one of two things:

1) A virus/malware - I last saw about a year ago a virus that could make weird random sounds appear at random intervals.

2) A sound from an application you are not aware.

To test for a Windows sound, open up Sound Properties and take a look through the list until you find the sound.

enter image description here

If you can't find the sound, next time it happens, try opening up the mixer which should have a list of applications that produce sound. All you need to do is find the one moving!

enter image description here

If it still isn't visible, try either closing applications one by one or even going in to safe mode.

If it still happens in safe mode, it could be interference or a bad sound card.

(I can't honestly remember off the top of my head if sound card drivers get loaded in safe mode, but, I assume it won't) - Another thing you may want to consider if it doesn't happen in Safe Mode is to update your sound drivers.

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I have XP, maybe that mixer is post XP – barlop Sep 9 '11 at 20:23
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@Barlop - ok, all still applicable other than the mixer step. – William Hilsum Sep 9 '11 at 20:34
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Mixers are often specific to a sound card. – RedGrittyBrick Sep 9 '11 at 22:53
see last comment to my question, I found it! – barlop Sep 9 '11 at 23:30
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up vote 2 down vote

Is the Juicy Steaks Poker SpyWare installed on your computer? I've had a few clients suffer from this (on workstations and servers), and their computers were exhibiting weird yet subtle sounds from time-to-time, like cards being shuffled (which your audio recording seems to resemble somewhat).

Forcibly removing this SpyWare was required (because the Juicy Steaks Uninstaller tool didn't work despite claiming a successful removal), and this removal also put an end to these weird sounds.

The two SpyWare removal tools that I've found to be trustworthy and reliable are:

  Malware Bytes
  http://www.malwarebytes.org/

  SpyBot - Search & Destroy
  http://security.kolla.de/

The icon for this program is the image of a slice of uncooked beef, which looked just like this one pictured here (I thought the name for this program was a joke, but apparently it's a real poker program that also may be distributing additional SpyWare as every one of the infected computers had a variety of other SpyWare installed, a few titles of which had some names that are not appropriate for children):

enter image description here

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interesting that there's some malware that does it, but the cause was a definitely the dog built into any and all instances of windows xp's search facility. – barlop Sep 10 '11 at 19:03
@barlop (+1): I upvoted your answer as well because it described a detailed solution to your problem. Thanks for encouraging me to post my comment as this answer. =) – Randolf Richardson Sep 13 '11 at 23:03
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up vote 1 down vote

Does your computer have a modem and is it plugged into a phone jack? It sounds like data transfer across a phone wire, or signal noise in a bad phone line. If the modem volume is turned up and the computer routes the modem volume through your speakers, you may hear odd sounds (as well as phone conversations) through your computer speakers.

Or, it could be simply a kinked speaker cable. Perhaps one of your speaker cables has a broken wire, and if it gets moved slightly, the disconnecting and reconnecting of the broken wire contacts can produce that kind of sound from the voltage change going to the speakers. If your mouse cable is moving your speaker cable due to contact, it could cause that to happen seemingly randomly.

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is that telephone thing you speak of only with cable? 'cos with dsl the modem plugs into a filter into the wall, and the phone plugs into the filter into the wall. so nothing from the phone could go to anything else. Out of interest, what setup could have the phone sound going into the computer? – barlop Sep 9 '11 at 20:57
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@barlop I mean a dial-up modem (internal or external) plugged directly into your computer. If you have cable, then it is not the cause. – sidran32 Sep 9 '11 at 20:59
I don't have cable ;-) for anybody that might be puzzed by the comments. dsl!=cable!=dial up. != means not equal to. – barlop Jan 30 at 2:58
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up vote 0 down vote

It's hard to tell.. the sound quality of the recording is not certain.

It could be lots of things, from a clicking hard drive to navigation sounds for internet explorer, to much more.

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It could also be a fan that's stuck pushing its blades against an adventurous cable. – Randolf Richardson Sep 9 '11 at 19:52
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