PC Beep Beep Beeping: How To Stop It

Reader Jose writes: My laptop crashed and after rebooting, it started beeping, really loud, whenever I do something "wrong." The catch is that I actually have it on mute in Windows! Why is it beeping and how do I make it stop?

This is usually a bigger problem on PCs (which have a small interior speaker most of the time that's separate from the audio output system), but I guess laptops are subject to the same complaint.

Figuring out exactly why the beeping began is probably a fool's errand. In the crash you mentioned some Windows file probably got a little corrupted, thus the beeping began. You could reinstall Windows to fix it, but that seems like overkill for such a minor problem. I wouldn't bother unless the system was showing real instability.

Here's an easy way to stop the beeping under XP.

Open the System control panel click Hardware, then Device Manager.

Under View, click "Show hidden devices." 

Scroll down to "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" and click the + sign. You'll see the accurately-named "Beep" as one of the selections. Right-click it and select "Disable." (See screen shot above.) You'll get an "are you sure?" dialog box and be told to restart. Do so. (The process is very similar under Vista, but you'll have to double-click "Beep" and select the Disable option inside the subsequent window instead of just right-clicking.)

That's it. Note that this won't break your other audio, just those annoying beeps. At least, it shouldn't. After you reboot, it's a good idea to go into the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel to make sure everything's otherwise working properly.

Good luck, and enjoy your new, beep-free life!