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I have very strange issue of hearing a "froggy" sound from my Lenovo laptop built-in speakers on Windows XP every 20 to 30 seconds. If I turn down the volume, the sound is gone. Obviously, there is some application that is producing this sound.

There is no Volume Mixer on Windows XP, and I do not know how to debug this. Is there any application that can track down the source of sound that comes out of the speakers?

Very similar question has been asked on this page, but it provides me no clues whatsoever.

Obviously, this is driving me crazy. Any help is highly appreciated.

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Do you have a windows "find" window open? I recall getting disrupted by the sound of the dog scratching every now and then when I was ignoring the window... similarly it took a while to figure out - I mention because I believe you can change the character... and well, you might have a frog! ;-) hehe Just read your link! – scunliffe Jan 30 at 1:35
I have read the link, and I do not have a search window open. When I do, I do have a dog but he does not scratch, and the sound still comes from somewhere. – Bojan Milankovic Jan 30 at 1:43
and did you set the control pannel sounds to the NONE theme ? knowing that if you put in another theme it can also change that again. – Psycogeek Jan 30 at 5:34
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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

I missed the key part of your question... a "LENOVO" laptop!... I know the sound you are getting (as I've had it too)

I can reproduce the sound by mashing several keys at once on the keyboard... its almost like it is an alarm noise to tell you that you've hit keys too fast.

Now for the bad news... I've looked into this before to try and figure it out but gave up... I'll try again and see if I find it.

It only happens on certain keys....

e.g. pressing "asd", "qwe", "iop" over and over... with all 3 keys at the same time won't trigger it... but if you press "dfg", "ert", "fgh", "rty", "tyu", "ghj", "vbn", "bnm" at the same time... you will get your "froggy" 'morse code like' noise every time... and none of the characters will print!!!

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pressing and holding a key would do that too – Journeyman Geek Jan 30 at 14:52
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It does not seem to be the issue. I am doing nothing and I can hear that sound every 30 seconds. – Bojan Milankovic Jan 30 at 23:20
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up vote 1 down vote

I would start by using Task Manager - Ctrl/Alt/Del. See if an application is running that you are unaware of. Then move on to the Processes tab in Task Manager. You can Google any process name you don't recognize. If some software is running that is making this sound it should be on the list.

Or maybe it's hardware? Is the sound precisely the same every time or does it vary in quality or length or volume? Is the interval between sounds always exactly the same - assuming you aren't doing anything else on the computer?

Should be a fun puzzle to solve!

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up vote 1 down vote

This is not really the answer but you say this:

There is no Volume Mixer on Windows XP, and I do not know how to debug this. Is there any application that can track down the source of sound that comes out of the speakers?

So I did a google search and found this method:

To display the volume control icon in the notification area:

Open Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel.

On the Volume tab, under Device volume, select the Place volume icon in the taskbar notification area check box.

If your sound card volume can be changed using software, a speaker icon appears in the notification area. You can change the volume by clicking the icon and adjusting the slider. Source

Hope this helps to identify the problem.

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No, it does not help. – Bojan Milankovic Jan 30 at 23:25
@BojanMilankovic if there is no mixer, are you hearing normal sounds? IF the "system" does not have an audio driver installed properly (and working) then default sound is sent to the Beep(er) instead. Instead of hearing the normal sounds , you get the beeper trying to tell what is going on. . Scunliffe indicates that on a lenovo the beep sound (which also would exist for the keyboard buffer issues) makes a similar sound. Could this instead just be that the audio drivers are not properly installed or working properly? – Psycogeek Jan 31 at 14:51
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@Psycogeek no, everything works fine, I can play music, etc. It's some background service that is producing this, and while I could go through the process list and start eliminating one by one, I would rather find an engineering technique how to track down the source of it. – Bojan Milankovic Feb 1 at 2:22
@BojanMilankovic Assuming you have already gone in and disabled the sound Theme in sounds. there is one more test you can do to try and discover what it comes from. Open up the device manager, and select to show hidden devices. then in non-plug-n-pray disable the "beep" driver. this will stop one aspect of communications to the computers beeper, providing one more clue. Then we need to Know what happens, because were not there, you have to fill in all the things you tried. – Psycogeek Feb 1 at 4:32
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