Comments on: What is this sound my PC keeps making?

Question: What is this sound my PC keeps making?

tomble — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:52:40 -0800

My new computer keeps making this sound, and I can't make it stop, or figure out what is doing it.

The sound is being played through the speakers. It turns up randomly, seeminly regardless of what I have open.

It's a white noise type sound that goes "shk...(pauses for a second)...shk". Almost like the recycle bin sound, but definitely not.

It's obviously something deliberate, rather than random system noise, but it's not a windows system sound as far as I can tell, and I don't know what else is doing it.

It's so intermittent that I can't tell if I've stopped it by shutting down applications or not.

I was recording some streaming audio, and it kept showing up.

I've checked every .wav file on my hard disc, and it's not one of those.

Does anyone have an idea what could be doing it? It's driving me crazy!

By: IndigoRain

IndigoRain — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:58:28 -0800

Wild stab in the dark: Interference?

Does the sound get louder if you turn the speakers up? Might help us determine the source of the sound.

Are you sure one of your applications doesn't have a default sound set to that?

By: pjern

pjern — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 03:59:12 -0800

Is your cell phone sitting anywhere near the computer?

Cells often communicate wth their networks even while you are not using them, and are known to interfere with computers. Try leaving it in another roon and see if it happens.

By: pjern

pjern — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:00:35 -0800

er, room.... *sigh*

By: psychobum

psychobum — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:21:33 -0800

I think there's a default sound for clicking links, I would reccomend just setting the sound scheme off from the control panel, system event sounds are a waste of resources.

By: scooters.toad

scooters.toad — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:36:28 -0800

Make sure that your speaker wired do not cross any power cords. Is it a laptop? Sometimes the charger units for batteries will cause an interesting sound if interfering with speakers.

By: handee

handee — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:45:15 -0800

I had an AOL trial thing pre-installed on my computer and it started up every N startups, sitting in the background and making a noise. Can't remember how I got rid of it, though... If this might be the problem try removing everything AOL.

By: psychobum

psychobum — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 06:28:53 -0800

Might be a nearby cel phone. They can make random interference/

By: niles

niles — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 06:32:00 -0800

Well, someone a few months ago had this problem. I can't really have multiple browser windows open on this computer so I can't look for it, but they basically had Windows search screens open. That little dog animation makes "fun", rather quiet dog noises. Could that be it?

Fine...I'm obsessively checking MeFi from my PDA.

By: wzcx

wzcx — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:03:48 -0800

I second the the cell phone interference. I've had the exact same sound come from my car speakers.

By: xsquared-1

xsquared-1 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:04:13 -0800

My husband has some kind of Yahoo! thing installed on our PC that alerts him when he gets a new e-mail. Took me forever to figure out what was making that damn noise. It was sort of recycle-bin-like.

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:07:18 -0800

Cell phones aren't that bad, but blackberries are DREADFUL. They are barely shielded at all and constantly cause that kind of noise on my computer speakers if they are anywhere nearby.

By: cebailey

cebailey — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:10:39 -0800

My wife had an old eMachines computer that had some truly bad circuitry design. Whenever she moved the mouse, an electric-sounding noise came from the speakers. This noise could possibly be described as "shk," and the seemingly random pauses might correspond to your mouse movement.

I can't remember if the fix was muting the microphone input on the sound card, or just muting the speakers altogether when she wasn't using her computer. Hope that helps.

By: llamateur

llamateur — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:19:56 -0800

I'm with Niles. I bet it's the search dog, as mentioned in this AskMe question. The fact that it always comes in pairs makes it a good bet.

By: tomble

tomble — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:16:13 -0800

It's definitely not interference, because I've heard that before. This is the same sound every time.

The search dog makes sense because I haven't turned it off yet. I'll give that a go and see what happens!

By: tabulem

tabulem — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 01:39:24 -0800

it's the search dog. i have the same problem, and i never figured out what it was before. but if you get the search dog up and click on it, and makes the noise. it's that noise all right.

windows is so idiotic.

By: tomble

tomble — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 17:24:12 -0800

I turned off the search dog, and haven't heard it since! Thanks all!