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My system administrator refuses to give me normal external speakers. He says my job requirement doesn't involve sounds. However, I do want to hear some Windows sounds.

Is there any way to play them from the PC speaker instead?

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    Do you have headphones?
    – sblair
    May 16, 2011 at 12:16
  • Is there any reason you can't buy your own speaker? And I thought the internal speaker (if there is one) isn't capable of producing a decent enough range of tones.
    – tombull89
    May 16, 2011 at 12:19
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    On my Dell PC I use for work the internal speaker actually produces normal mono sound. I don't know if this is a special speaker though. It looks normal
    – sinni800
    May 16, 2011 at 12:27

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Without knowing your hardware configuration it's difficult to say, but if you mean the little speaker that's integrated into the motherboard and beeps when you turn the computer on, probably not.

That speaker is intended for low bit sounds like post test chirps and Windows 7 system sounds generally exceed it's abilities.

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    Well, back in the mists of time the Sinclair ZX Spectrum could produce music and synthesised speech using a single-channel beeper similar to that on a PC motherboard. So it would theoretically be possible to get some extremely low-quality versions of the normal WAV files played through it but impractical I would think.
    – Alan B
    May 16, 2011 at 13:47
  • i've seen... well heard.. people do voice with a normal speaker. I do think that a cheap speaker/headphone would be a better way to solve the problem tho
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    May 17, 2011 at 7:34
  • O, It's very possible to drive the 1-bit PC-Speaker, to 'simulate' a very crude PWM. So back in the day, it was sometimes used in the demoscene and games. However, this is only possible if your PC-speaker was the old school style, not the piezoelectric ones they throw in currently. The limitation of the PC-Speaker wasn't the speaker, although it now usually is, it was the 1-bit circuitry. Almost all desktop motherboards come with full sound card circuitry, you just need some form of regular speakers (or headphones).
    – J. M. Becker
    Mar 10, 2013 at 19:47
  • But yea..., you can play waves with that PWM method, but they are very low quality. Not for everyday listening, it was always about the possibilities.
    – J. M. Becker
    Mar 10, 2013 at 19:48

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