Thinkpads Forum

I bought this 2008-4AU on eBay with a legit Win 7 freshly installed ( came with CD)
plus some software like O.O. , Firefox. I installed more freeware from reputable sites likes iTunes,
CCleaner, Irfanview, Audacity, Malwarebytes, Foxit etc
Windows Sound is set on 'no sounds' ie no alert type sounds.

I am getting annoying, high pitched beeps even when
there is nothing running, and Task Mgr is showing cpu 0% Ram 34% ( of 2G total)
I have deleted all start up items in msconfig .

One onboard beep comes, another say 8 secs later, then say 40 secs, then 5 secs.etc ie it is not a consistent
warning beep. Not over heating - it starts soon after bootup. Sometimes there is no beeping.
Any ideas /thoughts ?

Thanks lots !

Maybe it's the keyboard... Some of the keys might be shorting out intermittently.

Do you keep getting random letters coming up as you type?

Been awhile since I've used a T60, I think some of my units have a soft high pitched "laser" sound in some of the chips around the motherboard when its running at times.

Perhaps your ears are sensitive to it? There's a few models that seem to be louder than others.

Try muting the microphone.

Thanks -
Negative on the keyboard and typing - produces no sound.

"Perhaps your ears are sensitive to it?" - For sure and my *#%# nerves too.
Its a much lower volume, higher pitched beep than the type
of beep you get from POST on bootup etc. It seems to come from the right front so
I'll look and see whats located there - probably just the same onboard speaker for beep.

Disabled the Mic - thats a good possibility.

Got to get on with the wifes chores and then going out of town so
apologies if I dont reply for a while.

Hope you all enjoy the holidays. I'm dreaming of a beepless Christmas.

This beeping situation got worse and I could not relate it to any action/program.
The screen started freezing despite 2 Gb ram and nothing running.
Then the screen dimmed down to nothing and would not respond to any C Panel adjustment.
Undetectable Malware maybe ? although it was a fresh install with only some common, popular freeware
installations- hadnt gone on any dubious sites (yet )

Did a DBan zero fill and will reinstall 7 with the refurbishers CD .
If it persists I guess its the hardware. Maybe some stuff was in the non Windows
part of the softrware/firmware ?

Been on Linux for some time but have to have a Win machine for
Windows programs that are not available for Linux.

Thanks for al the suggestions.

By "high pitched beeps" do you mean CPU noise or the thinkpad's interrupt beep?

To test this try hitting a whole bunch of keys at once (like the top QWERTY row), that will max out the keyboard buffer causing it to emit a hardware beep which I wouldn't consider that high in pitch. If that's not the 'beeping' you're hearing, then it's definitely something to do with the system board-- or more specifically CPU noise if it's erratic beeping and scratching.

After you confirm that, try letting the laptop run in the BIOS and see if the problems continue there, if so it's probably the mobo (or power adapter). I can't determine much else due to more info being required.

Negative Micrex, that produces a sort of 'bell' sound which is quite different from
the 'beeping' I was hearing, which also was not like the POST and other diagnostic beeps.
It was very random.

Anyway - I have cleaned the HD and loaded OEM Win 7 and am now going to load shareware utilities
one by one and use each one to see if the sound occurs, then load the next.

My gut agrees with you that it is a hardware problem. eBay hardware (
but I am hoping that my install is cleaner than the refurbisher who just loaded 7
on top of XP and that was the problem.

PS: by power adapter do you mean the block/box that plugs into the wall
or the onboard power section ?

I think its the hard drive- noise is only present when the indicator light is flashing
ie drive in use, and the noise is coming from that area.
Will change it.

Thanks to all

I often hear a beeping type of sound when the optical drive is initiated. Just going to suggest long shots but have you left a disk in the optical drive? If not try removing the optical drive and see if that makes any difference.