beeping, cheeping, chirping :-(

[brotherS]

Hi!

Sometimes all sounds played in Windows (2000) are totally f*cked up for no apparent reason, it's more some kind of chirping or beeping instead of the regular Windows samples. Same happens when I try to play something in Winamp or other programs then

I used to reboot my PC when this happened, but recently I found out that closing most of the running apps and giving the PC a few minutes to 'recover' is enough. Weird, huh?

Any ideas what could cause this? Any fixes?

[mouser]

open up your computer case and remove any bird nests.

[brotherS]

open up your computer case and remove any bird nests.

-mouser (January 07, 2006, 02:59 PM)

I checked already, there are only the usual bats hanging around in the back of my big tower.

[Josh]

open up your computer case and remove any bird nests.

-mouser (January 07, 2006, 02:59 PM)

I checked already, there are only the usual bats hanging around in the back of my big tower.

-brotherS (January 07, 2006, 03:47 PM)

Have you installed any codec packs recently? And does this occur only on audio files or audio and video together?

[brotherS]

open up your computer case and remove any bird nests.
Have you installed any codec packs recently? And does this occur only on audio files or audio and video together?

-mouser (January 07, 2006, 02:59 PM)

I installed and uninstalled different codes packs in 2005, but the problem occures too rarely to be related to codec problems IMHO. When it happens it happens for every single audio output, audio and video.

-brotherS (January 07, 2006, 03:47 PM)

-Josh (January 07, 2006, 04:02 PM)

[Josh]

Can you try playing an audio/video file in safe mode? See if it studders/crackles there?

[nudone]

probably completely unrelated but a friend of mine kept complaining about his laptop not playing things properly even though he knew the same files had worked in the past - the solution was to turn dma back on - somehow it had been disabled.

[brotherS]

Can you try playing an audio/video file in safe mode? See if it studders/crackles there?

-Josh (January 07, 2006, 04:57 PM)

IIRC Winamp did play sounds fine in safe mode (has been a while).

probably completely unrelated but a friend of mine kept complaining about his laptop not playing things properly even though he knew the same files had worked in the past - the solution was to turn dma back on - somehow it had been disabled.

-nudone (January 07, 2006, 06:21 PM)

Ah, interesting. Windows is really strange sometimes...

[Innuendo]

May be just the excuse you need to blow out the cobwebs by doing a fresh install of Windows.

[Hirudin]

A couple things I would try...

Uninstall the driver, restart the comp, and let windows reinstall it. This fixes tons of problems...

Also, I find that if something happens "for no reason" it's probably a heat issue. It's possible the "recovery" period is simply letting whatever is overheating cool down.   ...?
Whenever I suspect something is overheating I will just stick a desk fan in front of the comp/device. If the problem goes away it's heat, if it stays it's something else. Maybe your case needs a canned air treatment.



One last thing, how often does this happen?

[brotherS]

May be just the excuse you need to blow out the cobwebs by doing a fresh install of Windows.

-Innuendo (January 08, 2006, 11:49 AM)

I'll only consider this when I have really, really, really bad problems Would take a week or two to install and setup everything again...

Uninstall the driver, restart the comp, and let windows reinstall it. This fixes tons of problems...

Also, I find that if something happens "for no reason" it's probably a heat issue. It's possible the "recovery" period is simply letting whatever is overheating cool down.   ...?
Whenever I suspect something is overheating I will just stick a desk fan in front of the comp/device. If the problem goes away it's heat, if it stays it's something else. Maybe your case needs a canned air treatment.

One last thing, how often does this happen?

-Hirudin (January 09, 2006, 05:43 AM)

When I posted it hasn't happened in 5 or 6 weeks I guess. It used to happen more often...

I don't really think that it's a heat problem since I watch CPU temp all of the time, and I optimized the air flow in the tower case I own. But thanks for your "desk fan" idea, I should try that when it happens again!

[Carol Haynes]

Maybe a dry joint on the sound card - they can be a devil to track down.

I changed my old sound card not so long ago as I started to get intermittent stuff like this, and then it suddenly became consistent on one channel. Drivers/new installs etc. solved nothing. Plugged in a new card and all was fine.

If it is working now then wait and see but if it becomes less intermittent it may be a developing hardware fault.

Incidentally I have an odd issue like this. I have a 7.1 surround system on my Audigy card and use an old CD deck to play music through though the system by plugging the CD deck out into one of the card's breakout box sockets. I was constantly getting crackling which I thought was a dodgy lead connection between the two as fiddling with the lead seemed to cure it for a while. Turns out, having replaced the cable, that it is actually an earthing problem. Even though the computer and CD deck are connected via the same earthed mains socket (bot via a UPS circuit) there seems to be a mismatched earth causing static pops and crackles. Physically earthing both jointly but touching the earth connectors with my fingers cures this problem until the next system reboot. Strange but these things happen!

[brotherS]

Maybe a dry joint on the sound card - they can be a devil to track down.

I changed my old sound card not so long ago as I started to get intermittent stuff like this, and then it suddenly became consistent on one channel. Drivers/new installs etc. solved nothing. Plugged in a new card and all was fine.

If it is working now then wait and see but if it becomes less intermittent it may be a developing hardware fault.

[...] Physically earthing both jointly but touching the earth connectors with my fingers cures this problem until the next system reboot. Strange but these things happen!

-Carol Haynes (January 10, 2006, 06:50 PM)

Interesting... I'll see what happens here. If I only get this rarely it surely still is annoying, but I can live with it.