[PLUG] Sound Issue

Dale Snell ddsnell at frontier.com
Fri Jan 4 00:22:51 UTC 2013


On Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:51:08 -0800
"Richard C. Steffens" <rsteff at comcast.net> wrote:

> On 01/03/2013 08:37 AM, Dale Snell wrote:
> > Open up your box again, only this time boot it up and try playing
> > some music.  Use a cardboard tube (say, from a roll of waxed
> > paper) to one ear to determine where the "phantom" sound is coming
> > from.  I've used this technique to find the source of odd sounds
> > before -- it's surprising how well it works.  I'd be willing to
> > bet that there's some odd, non-speaker-looking component on the
> > motherboard that's acting as the speaker.
> 
> Interesting technique. It might have been more effective if there 
> weren't so many big shiny fins all over the place.
> 
> Actually, the closest I've come to finding what sounds like a real 
> speaker is that with the cover off, and using the cardboard tube, the 
> sound seems to be coming from "under" the motherboard. That would be
> on one of the sides of the tower. It looks like there's room for a
> modest speaker in there. There are too many other things I'd likely
> mess up if I were required to find the culprit, so I'm just going to
> sigh and say, "Hey. I've got a speaker inside my computer."

Heh, yeah, all those finny things can get in the way.

But this leads me to wonder if Bill Barry isn't on the right
track.  If it's not a cable problem, perhaps it's software.  As
you said, you've probably got a speaker hidden on the blind side
of the case.  It's probably connected to the "beep" channel of
your sound chip.  Could it be that your main rear channels have
somehow been redirected to the beep channel?  I'm just guessing
here, but it can't hurt to check.

--Dale

--
The question of whether computers can think is just like the
question of whether submarines can swim.
        -- Edsger W. Dijkstra



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