Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Outlook beep

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-10-2006, 03:13 AM:

Running Outlook 2003 on my laptop. The laptop is less than a year old and has been running Outlook 2003 on it since the day I got it. All of a sudden out of nowhere, whenever a new piece of mail arrives the motherboard (not speakers) emits a very loud BEEP.

Anyone have any ideas? Absolutely nothing was changed or altered. I was on a job out of town for a couple of weeks and it started doing this about halfway through the trip...and I had ONLY used the laptop in the hotel room for internet and email. Nobody else had touched it and I did not alter any settings.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-10-2006, 03:21 AM:

Windows sounds are evil. Installing new software or windows updates can cause your preferences to get barfed up and reset. [Mad]

Two options:

(1) Go to Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds Tab and choose "No Sounds" as the scheme or turn off any mail notification in the event list. (You may need to choose another scheme, click "apply" and the re-choose "No Sounds".)

(2) In Outlook, go to Tools > Options > Preferences Tab > Email Options > Advanced Email Options and uncheck "Play a Sound" under "When new items arrive in my Inbox".

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-10-2006, 03:25 AM:

Have you tried giving up e-mail?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-10-2006, 05:45 AM:

Outlook sucks; get a real mail client.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-10-2006, 06:56 AM:

I wish I could, but work uses Outlook so I have to. I so wish they'd have an POP or IMAP server so I could use Eudora, but they won't so I can't. That having been said I do find the calendar, contacts and tasks features useful and reasonably well designed; but as an email client, Outlook is shite.

Brad - are you absolutely sure this is a system bleep and not one coming through the sound card? Laptop speakers can be a bit tinny, and I can't think of any way Outlook could be triggering the system speaker, and the two settings Adam mentions are the only relevant ones I can think of, too.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-10-2006, 01:54 PM:

Yes I am positive it is a motherboard beep. My initial reaction was to turn the speakers all the way down, and indeed the motherboard beep is still there as loud as ever.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-10-2006, 01:59 PM:

You may also check the BIOS settings on boot-up to see if there is an option to turn off the system speaker.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-10-2006, 03:47 PM:

The solution can probably be found here.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-11-2006, 02:19 AM:

Many thanks David. Didn't know that Windows software was now triggering the motherboard bleeper. A little Googling revealed this tweak for stopping Windows from doing system bleeps altogether:

quote: here
In Windows 2k/XP there is a way to disable the beep, go into device manager, select the "Show hidden devices" option, go to "non plug and play device" find that device named "Beep" and set it to disabled.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 12-11-2006, 03:15 AM:

Have you tried a hammer? I sniffed aour a bit too, come up with pretty much the same. Maybe, if changing the sound settings doesn't work, reinstalling outook will reset whatever is causing your sound to be diverted to PC speaker. Is it even trying to play the mail notification sound, in addition to it, or nothing but the PC speaker?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-11-2006, 05:19 AM:

For a desktop PC, removing the connector from the PC case bleeper speaker from the motherboard is an option; in fact, when I built my current PC, I never even bothered to connect it in the first place. That's probably more difficult with a laptop, though.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 12-11-2006, 01:10 PM:

I keep mine connected, in fact it's connected to the sound card due to the noise the case fans put off. The pc speaker still serves its origina pupose with me, it alerts me of issues, at least when something isn't responding. Kind of like using the num-lock key to determine if you're hard locked, or maybe just the application locked.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-11-2006, 05:18 PM:

Well???? Is it fixed? Don't leave us hanging on the edge like this. The suspense is killing us!!!