How do I stop strange repeating "Windows" sound?

[dumark]

Here's the issue, every 30 minutes or so a sound plays through my speakers. I have identified it as the "Windows Background" sound.

If you right click on the volume icon and click on sounds, it's the sound used for a number of different items, including the "Default Beep" "Asterisk" "Exclamation" "Low Battery" and "System Notification."

Here are the fixes I had tried to date...

1) Changing my sound scheme to "No Sounds"

2) Opening up the volume mixer and muting System Sounds

3) Unplugging all USB peripherals and using a different keyboard/mouse

4) Disabling Windows defender and turning off all system notifications

5) Unplugging all cords attached to the motherboard, clean and reattach

6) Monitoring system events in the event viewer

7) Clean install of Windows 10

The repeating sound will not stop. If you know of a fix, I will be immensely grateful.

Thanks so much in advance

 

[Trouble]

I think I would start with
Settings -> System -> Notifications & actions, and experiment.
Turn everything that you see there to "Off"
Test
IF that seems to provide any relief then start turning them on again and test some more

 

[dumark]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have done that. All the notifications and actions are turned off. The sound still randomly plays every 30 minutes or so.

 

[dumark]

Not sure if this is a fix, more of a bandaid solution...I deleted the "Windows Background" sound from the C>Windows>Media folder. Is there any harm in doing that, apart from not hearing that sound for certain notifications?

*EDIT - Deleting the "Windows Background" sound did not work

 

[Grizzly]

there is another one beside the media folder:

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-shell-sounds_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.15063.0_none_2826556bee58508f

deleting is one option but renaming it is better as it is reversible.
hope it helps.....

 

[dumark]

there is another one beside the media folder:

C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-shell-sounds_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.15063.0_none_2826556bee58508f

deleting is one option but renaming it is better as it is reversible.
hope it helps.....

Thanks Grizzly! I just renamed the file there as well. Fingers are crossed , will update this thread tomorrow if it's fixed.

 

[dumark]

@Grizzly - Shortly after renaming that folder, I heard the "Windows Background" sound again. Seems crazy I know. I double checked and both media folders have been renamed and as a failsafe, I also deleted the "Windows Background" sound. Any other ideas?

 

[Wolfie]

HI dumark,

did you install any extra themes from the Windows Store?, a lot of the extra themes have their own sound files!.

 

[Grizzly]

Since it happens every 30 minutes or so, it seems there is a task running at that time. Did you schedule something to run in that time frame?? this is the only thing I can think of...

 

[Regedit32]

If you open Services.msc do you by chance have the MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler Service) running?

If you do, disable it for an hour and see whether your mystery sound stops.

 

[dumark]

HI dumark,

did you install any extra themes from the Windows Store?, a lot of the extra themes have their own sound files!.

Hey @Wolfie - After doing a clean install of Windows, the only thing I installed was Adobe CC, Microsoft Office and Google Chrome. No themes or any other tweaks.

 

[dumark]

Since it happens every 30 minutes or so, it seems there is a task running at that time. Did you schedule something to run in that time frame?? this is the only thing I can think of...

Hi @Grizzly - Nope, no scheduled tasks. After doing the clean Windows install, I reinstalled Adobe CC, Microsoft Office and Google Chrome. No themes or any other tweaks.

 

[dumark]

If you open Services.msc do you by chance have the MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler Service) running?

If you do, disable it for an hour and see whether your mystery sound stops.

Thanks for the suggestion @Regedit32, I checked and didn't see any services with the MMCSS or Multimedia Class Scheduler Service.

 

[Regedit32]

Is there any Scheduled Tasks running then.

Open Task Scheduler and take a peek.

ccleaner sets up a task to auto start for example, not that that would make a beep.