Annoying pinging

[venik]

A friend has a Dell Optiplex 330 with Windows XP SP3 on it. A few weeks ago the machine started making an annoying PINGing sound (like the one you hear when plugging a USB drive into the machine). This happens every couple of minutes (not perfectly regularly), without anything plugged in or out of the machine. She tried System Restore, but, as usual, it failed. She ran several virus and spybot cleaning programs, but none cured the problem.
Does anyone have any idea what could be causing it?

Thanks,

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Does it happen when it is sitting or just when being used? Some spell checkers make an annoying sound like that.

[Rocketmech]

Could be a keyboard error. Check for a stuck key or objects under the keys or just try another KB.

It may help to run Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc)and view the Processes running for any clues. Same for looking over the Event Viewer logs for errors and warnings. You can open the Event Viewer by typing eventvwr.msc in the Run box and press enter. Or right click My Computer and select Manage. Event Viewer will be in the left pane.

Older programs like Spybot just don't have the muscle these days against malware although they are somewhat helpful. I would recommend a pro security check, it's thorough and better yet it's free. Follow the the guidelines in the link ..
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...d.php?t=167915

[BipolarBill]

If the noise is exactly like the PnP device notification, maybe that is exactly what it is. Unplug all USB devices that are non-critical and see if the noise stops. If it does, plug each device in one at a time until the sound returns.

My point is that it may be a defective USB connection in one of your devices.

[venik212]

Well, it was an external USB disk that went bad, and WINDOWS was trying to get its attention. Once I unplugged it all was fine.