Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with beep

What is my car trying to tell me?

LolaGeek — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:36:07 -0800

For the last year or two, my car occasionally made a short, electronic beep as I turned the key to start it up. For the past week, it's been doing it at least once a day, and the beep is longer, sometimes followed by a series of three or four shorter beeps. What does this mean? This is a 2002 Ford Focus. Nothing is lit up on the dashboard, it's driving fine, and everything else seems to be working normally.

The beep is short and quiet (you don't notice it if the radio is on), not as loud or insistent as the "ding ding" of leaving the headlights on or starting the car before buckling the seatbelt.

It was winter when it started happening, and I thought it had something to do with the temperature being low, but since then it's happened all year round. Sometimes it would happen a couple times a week, and then it would go weeks before happening again.

For the past week, it's been happening when I drive my car for the first time each day, and then if I don't drive for a while (e.g. while I'm at work) it'll do it again when I drive hours later. If I'm just out running errands, and get back to the car within an hour, it doesn't beep.

I don't think it's anything major, or else wouldn't some dashboard light be coming on? I just don't know what it's trying to tell me!

Why is my Thinkpad beeping when docked and on standby?

Ms. Informed — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:30:27 -0800

Why does my Thinkpad X40 beep when docked and standing by? My Thinkpad X40 (almost 5 years old) has picked up a new, annoying habit. When it's in the docking station and I put it on standby (say, while I'm out for lunch), it beeps. The pattern is three quick high-pitched beeps, a pause, three quick high-pitched beeps, repeat ad infinitum. It sounds like a kitchen timer. When I take the computer out of standby (by pressing the Fn key), the beeping stops.

The docking station stays plugged in, so it shouldn't be a power issue. And it happens even if the laptop's sound is muted. It does not happen when the computer is NOT docked and is put in standby. I've had this docking station for 2+ years and never noticed this before; the only change I've made recently is I got a new, extended-life battery a few months ago.

I've tried googling for help but couldn't find anything relevant. Any ideas on what's causing this and how to fix it? I guess I could just leave the laptop on when it's docked, even if I'm not at my desk, but you know, the environment...

Too many beeps

xo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:49:10 -0800

How might I disable or muffle the beeps that my appliances make (when buttons are pressed, when cooking cycle is finished) without risking my life or that of the unit? The toaster-oven is the most egregious offender, but the microwave is problematic too.

My iPhone thinks it's a Road Runner.

lleachie — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:03:43 -0800

My iPhone has started beeping before incoming calls. What's this? I have a 16 GB iPhone, freshly upgraded to 3.0. (I'm in the US, on AT&T). My iPhone now beeps before incoming calls, even when it's on silent mode. If it makes any difference, the battery is pretty well-charged, so it's not a low battery thing. Not sure what's up there, or if there's a setting on the new system I don't know about, but I can't have it beeping in class when I'm the teacher and I have a silent cell phone policy!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Justinian — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:38:26 -0800

Why can't I use power standby mode on my computer anymore? I've had my computer for a couple years now. It's an Athlon 64 FX-55 with 2 gig of RAM and an ASUS A8N-Sli NFORCE4 motherboard. I've always had it set to go into standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity. No problems.

Any time I come back to the computer after it goes into standby for the last few days it freezes up and emits one continuous beep. Sounds like the beep it makes when the computer posts upon startup, except, uh, continuous. Rebooting works fine and this never happens upon cold boot or in use.

My first thought is a power supply issue but why would it only occur in standby mode and never upon reboot or startup or any other time? I've disabled standby mode for now and everything seems fine, but I'd like to fix this if possible.

Does standby mode actually save enough power to make it worth investing in a new power supply to test if that's the issue? I secretly suspect that the "power saving" settings are actually worthless and just there to make you feel good about yourself.

How can I completely stop my microwave from beeping?

lorimer — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:18:10 -0800

I want my microwave never to beep (either for setting times or when cooking is done). Any other device I'd just disassemble enough to cut or block the sound source, but I'm guessing disassembly's not safe here. I don't have a manual (it's a GE, no apparent model number, bought secondhand last year). Can you think of a solution other than trying to physically block the sound just from the outside?

Microwave oven that doesn't beep?

flutable — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:26:53 -0800

Hi MeFi, does anyone know a brand/model of microwave oven that doesn't beep if you leave the food in it after the cooking is finished? Manufacturers' web sites never mention little, but important, things like this. It's for an office, and I don't want people driven insane if someone forgets to take their food out. There's nothing I hate more than nagging appliances!

BLEEEEP

mateuslee — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:11:35 -0800

An annoying bleep from my computer is unnerving and occasionally terrifying. Well, whenever one makes an error in some Microsoft program you may hear some error message which alerts you to the fact that you cannot perform whatever operation you are trying to execute.

My new computer does this too - but the sound is a high pitched loud bleep which makes me jump and has terrified me into not making any errors like pushing backspace to the end of a area.

I've looked at the sound control panel and everything seems in order, everything appears to be on the default settings -

But I may be wrong, my Windows is in Dutch, a language which I hardly read, much less speak. Anyway, this bleep is apparently the only sound the computer makes aside from the start-up/shut-down music. Even when it asks me if I want to save my work the computer produces that God awful sound. Even on mute it makes the sound, albeit slightly muffled. Creepy, huh?

Can someone out there help me out? Also, I think there is some way to replace the slew of annoying pre-programmed chimes with pleasant ones which you c an download.

Any ideas?

Pages that beep on cell phones

baggers — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:42:52 -0800

I'm trying to build a web page that beeps for some testing I am doing. Not a problem, you might think: just embed a beepy .wav file. But I need the page to beep in all web browsers, including the crappy ones on cell phones that don't work with embedded files. Any suggestions?

Beep goes the iMac.

starman — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:04:40 -0800

What is that "return from sleep" beep my iMac makes, and why does it do it randomly? Why my iMac comes out of sleep, it gives a faint "beep" sound. This may or may not be normal. When the computer is idle (and not asleep), it will make the sound, too. Randomly. I think it will even do it when the hard drive is spun down.

It's driving us a little nuts. Please save us. If needed I can record the sound.

20" Intel Core Duo 2.0, all the latest updates. I've checked the energy saver options, haven't seen anything to do with this. Google and Apple discussions have failed me so far as well.

Is this car lonely?

ook — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:54:01 -0800

So I have this car. It's not my car; I'm just keeping it for a friend. In my driveway. Empty. It's been here for about five months. Today, it started honking its horn at me. Not continuously. Just once in a while. Is the car lonely? Or is there some more rational explanation? Hypotheses already tested:

The button isn't stuck. I've tried going out there and honking it once or twice, and it works normally.

I've tried leaving the engine idling for a while, on the theory that something is frozen or stuck and that that will solve it. It's still impatiently tootling at me.

There isn't an animal in there. Unless it's a very small and not at all easily startled animal.

It's just below freezing out there now, though not for the first time this winter, so I'm not sure if that's relevant. (It was much warmer -- near 60 degrees -- a few days ago. Again, not sure if that's relevant.)

How do I make it stop before the neighbors kill me? (With the caveat that my knowledge of car engines begins and ends with "it's that scary thing under the hood".)

What is this beep?

ifranzen — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:13:01 -0800

What is the 1 second long, "beep" coming from my laptop? My laptop is driving me absolutely nuts with a "beep" it makes every 20 minutes or so. It is a Dell Inspiron E1505.

I have tried muting the volume in the control panel, NOTHING. Last night, at 4AM, I was close to throwing it out the window. As soon as I would drift off to sleep, the sound would ring through my ears and bring me back to consciousness. I shut the screen and double-checked that the volume was muted. Nothing. I finally resorted to unplugging everything from the laptop and putting it in the hall outside of my bedroom.

I cannot silence this damn noise.

I've had the laptop for about 5 months. It has a TV tuner, USB optical mouse, ethernet cord, and external speakers plugged into it. Sigmatel Audio is the internal sound driver.

As mentioned, this sound is a one second "beep" - sounds a little bit like one of the keys of a touch-tone is being pressed (and no, this is not what the sound is). It was difficult to locate the source of the sound because of the tone, but through process of elimination, it is most definitely the laptop.

If the hive mind can identify the source of the sound or tell me how I can shut it off, I would be eternally grateful.

Is there a way to beep out swear words in a music file?

rinkjustice — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:12:15 -0800

Is there software - preferrably free, natch - that beeps out swear words in music files?

Make my Mac beep me when it's finished.

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 11 May 2006 03:59:27 -0800

Help me make my other Mac, in the other room, beep me when an app has finished what it's doing. I have two Macs. The one in the living room is for browsing. The other one, down the hall, is where I do things like burning DVDs. It's not online.

So, if burning a DVD takes 20 minutes or so, I forget about it. A couple of hours later I remember and start burning the next one. So about an hour's work can take all day. And I can't be forever walking down the hall to see how it's going.

So, there must be some way I can run a script which monitors ps or top or something, right?

Every minute it could check and if Disk Utility's CPU usage was at 0.00%, then it's finished. And the computer would start quietly beeping. There's still some BELL character you can print to make it beep, right? Am I going to have problems with false positives, readings of zero for a split second?

For all I know there's actually shiny-GUI software which will do this, but I've never heard of it and can't think how to search. And I don't need it. I'll happily start the app, then type

beepwhenfinished 'Disk Utility'

or something.