Random Beep?

OK I am not sure whether to put this into OS or Cooling, but I'm kind of hoping it's just an OS question.

Every now and then, after I play a game or use performance-intensive software for about 45 minutes straight, my PC will emit a short BEEP identical to the one right after I turn on my computer. What does the beep mean?! I keep freaking out because I think it is overheating or something, but the temp. readout says mid-thirties. Thanks in advance for any help I can get on this issue.

are you looking at the temp readout right as the beep happens? or do you have to exit whatever you're doing to check the temp?

Yeah sounds like it might be a temp alarm from your board. Try running prime95 or looping some 32mark if it only occurs during games, & the you can monitor your temps & hopefully find out where you need to adjust your cooling.

also you might be able to go into your BIOS to see what settings there are regarding alerts or beeps... then figure out what the problem could be based on what settings are on

What motherboard/CPU are you using? And what kind of monitoring software?

I had a tempature problem before with an old athlon. The tempature read outs on diodes on motherboards are never very accurate. There close but not perfect. What I did was use a in-fer-read thermomoneter my dad has to check the tempatuer while the computer was turned on. What you might want to do is run a game loop thats intensive on graphics and see if you cant find someone that has one of these gizmos and monitor the chip with the side of the case off while the loop is running. It might be hard with a socketed cpu, I did this with a slot A athlon so it was easy. But anyway try that and see if it is a tempature problem and if your board is reading right tempatures. If it's not that try updating your bios and check the settings in your bios. And if worst comes to worse and no one can ever find a real explantation and it's not doing any harm to your system disconnect the system speaker.

Aeon Flux said:

What I did was use a in-fer-read thermomoneter my dad has to check the tempatuer while the computer was turned on.

Click to expand...

do you mean infrared?

Usually, the beeps would persist. I'm wondering if your computer is hitting the peak temperature, and then quickly going down?

thats what i was thinking.... maybe theres just so much activity at one instant, the system beeps, and then the activity slows down a bit and the temp goes down.

any updates on the status, summit?

this happens to me when i press like 5 letters at a time during wolf et, but i really dont care i just unplugged the thing

i dont know if temps can change that quickly if the readout is in teh 30's to something a mobo would set the alarm to be at default....

are you running mbm5? or a similiar proggie? check those settings too

My computer beeps sometimes also. Im running an Asus A7n8x, i think its because when i game, i often puch several keys at once, in a rush and excitement. try it, smash and hold a few keys and see if it beeps. mine does.

thats probably what it is

if you press down too many keys at once, many systems will beep... im not sure exactly why, but it happens to me, too now that i think about it....

UPDATES:

Ok, well I think it's save to say that I don't do a whole lot of button mashing... so holding down 15 keys at a time or whatever is probably out.

I am using a Chaintech 9CJS Zenith with the monitoring software that comes with the board. I've got a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz processor overclocked to 2.8. My cooling system consists of 2 extremely large fans (120mm), one in front and one in back, in an Antec case. There is a digital readout on the front of my case thanks to the "cbox3", a peripheral that came WITH the motherboard. That is what I was looking at when it beeped.

I have run motherboardmonitor 5 before, and it didn't seem accurate at all... in fact, one of the sensors was reporting temperatures so high that my parts would have been melted long ago (talking like upper hundreds here).

I don't get the beeps often, but it makes me raise an eyebrow when I do.

you dont need to be smashing 15 keys at once... i think the magic number is 4, safely, and the 5th it beeps (i just tried it on my laptop).

when it happens to me, im usually playin mohaas (medal of honor allied assault: spearhead ) and im runnin and gunnin

im guessing that what Ffats said is true; the alarm would persist...