Strange Pinging Noise

I have a Toshiba Dynabook. First symptoms, some months ago, was a sudden freeze, only repairable by unplugging and taking out the battery. Nowadays, for the past couple months, there has started the strangest pinging noise, coming in one loud 'ping!', about once every few hours. I've never heard of a symptom like this and I thought the router may be picking up something from the area. But it happens wherever I take the notebook and it doesn't seem to matter if which progs are open at the time. Sometimes it doesn't happen, however. Have any idea what I'm talking about?

That machine is touted as a "gaming machine" and comes with the ability to make loud noises which may occur with "ordinary" alerts during the course of using the computer.

You may benefit from investigating which Sound Scheme you have loaded.
Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices
_________

But I'll bet you'd rather be able to confirm that the "noise" is not indicating something awful going on in your machine.

Can you determine that your machine is free of Malware.
For instance, when a NetBios attack is blocked by Zone Alarm Firewall, the alert can be associated with a "ping" sound.
Similarly, other attempts to access the internet that may be blocked by a Firewall may also be accomanied by sound alert.
__________

To get a good overview of your machine's present functioning….

Please Run the PCPitstop Full Tests, here:
http://www.pcpitstop.com
Register and create a password
Accept the ActiveX component to allow your machine to run the Full Tests
Registering and accepting the ActiveX are both SAFE and FREE.
Full Tests is the first item in the left hand column of that page.

The Full Tests take about 2-3 minutes for most machines.
Once you have your Results, please post the TechExpress Link back here into this thread for review.
TechExpress is the last item on the list in the yellow box in upper right area of any Results page.
Post the entire URL link information back here into this Forum thread.

After reviewing the results, we may be better able to provide specific recommendations.

Best Regards

Thanks, Doug. Here's the link!

http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=LQQLHWJ8G7VSUVYV

What is your Drive L:\ used for? (media to go) It's entirely possible that you have an automated process, like Windows attempting to create a new Restore Point on Drive L:\, which finds only 336mb of free space, which would not be enough room to operate. Reduce the System Restore Space on all of the Drives to neighborhood of 1% or as close to under 1024mb for space reserved for System Restore. ________ Are you in a remote location or do you have poor wiring involved in your phone/dsl service. That Average Ping is not "terrible", but I would expect that a machine showing that score would be located at least overseas, maybe toward the East in Europe or the West in Australia. If you are located in Continental US, then check your phone wiring. Let us know about your progress or information on the above, then we can look a little further with your Test Results if necessary. Best Regards

Drive L is used for storing videos and music and is full to capacity. I am located in Japan, in a city, not remote at all. The phone, tv and net are al on a cable system through the local cable company. I'll set the restore points now.

Drive L is data and progs Media to go is used for storing videos and music and is full to capacity. I am located in Japan, in a city, not remote at all. The phone, tv and net are al on a cable system through the local cable company. Restore points on the above two drives were not monitored. Windows has been reset to 1% which comes to 200mb.

Good Work Deva! And your location in Japan explains the Average Ping - not a problem. It is a long way across the Pacific to our server in middle-America. Describing Drive L:\ as "full to capacity" is kinda like what we did back in the '60s and '70s here on US college campuses, trying to see how many people could be squeezed into a Phone Booth, or a Volkswagen Beetle. Every Drive needs a bit of "operating room" (even data storage drives) 25% is the "magic number" for amount of Free Space needed on a Drive. Defrag won't work on a drive as low as 11%, but application features start dropping off much sooner. Consider backing-up/saving some of your media to CD/DVD or an external Hard Drive, if you are able to. I realize that we haven't discovered the mysterious cause of your "loud noise", but the posts above will likely help your machine's performance. Now. What's causing that noise? Still thinking….. Best Regards

Thanks for the tips and the further thought, Doug. I'll move some stuff around a bit and free up that space!

When I cited 25% above for FREE Space, I was quoting "absolute" lowest recommended levels. Many experts will urge you to stay at around 50%. I mention this, in case you are thinking about moving some of your files to the other two partitions (thereby decreasing their own FREE Space) <– Not a good idea. ________ About the "noise"…. Just a long shot… but possible. If you "rest" your fingers or hands on the Keyboard, depressing a Key for more than 8 seconds, you will get an annoying and loud "ping" sound. But you would ordinarily also get a printed alert, asking if you wanted to set keyboard limits differently. But it is an annoying "ping sound" Just a thought. Best Regards

Actually, I just removed a couple of movies to the secondary hd on the desk top. As for the ping, it's getting louder as the weeks go by. I don't have to be anywhere near the computer when it happens. I dl a lot, so I might have bit commet running at the time. The firewall is often set to allow all, but the ping isn't restricted to any particular locale either. I know the computer is leaking info, because everytime I surf, my spam mail on the yahoo account reflects my current surfing trends. The strange freezes leads me to believe I have a motherboard issue, so not sure how that relates to this, but that's about all I can think of. Oh, and i think the volume of the ping relates to my current volume settings as well - when they are low, it is low…

Oh, and my sound device configurations are - speakers 'laptop stereo' and sound 'no sound'.

I'm wondering why you appear to have your Paging File "disabled"? You may be exceeding your 512mb physical RAM installed on a regular basis Having a Windows Managed Swap File would most likely help.. Exceeding resident memory "could" be the alert you are hearing.

You mention "leaks". How about a few Malware Scans. Panda Online Scan or Kaspersky online Scan And run your onboard utilities as well. Let us know what you find. You can post the log from either/both of the online scans.

Spybot showed a few firefox tracking cookies which, as usual, I eliminated. The online Kaspersky scan came up with this for the first report: I hope you wanted me to print out all this…lol Tuesday, September 25, 2007 4:54:21 PM Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) Kaspersky Online Scanner version: 5.0.93.1 Kaspersky Anti-Virus database last update: 25/09/2007 Kaspersky Anti-Virus database records: 423055 Scan Settings Scan using the following antivirus database extended Scan Archives true Scan Mail Bases true Scan Target My Computer C:\ D:\ F:\ G:\ L:\ Scan Statistics Total number of scanned objects 60111 Number of viruses found 2 Number of infected objects 2 Number of suspicious objects 0 Duration of the scan process 01:10:06 Infected Object Name Virus Name Last Action C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Common Client\settings.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\NTUSER.DAT Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\ntuser.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\NTUSER.DAT Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\ntuser.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Microsoft\IMJP8_1\imjp81u.dic Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\cert8.db Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\flashgot.log Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\formhistory.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\history.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\key3.db Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\parent.lock Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\search.sqlite Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\urlclassifier2.sqlite Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Cookies\index.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\Cache\_CACHE_001_ Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\Cache\_CACHE_002_ Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\Cache\_CACHE_003_ Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ppz0w700.default\Cache\_CACHE_MAP_ Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist012007092520070926\index.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\AntiPhishing\B3BB5BBA-E7D5-40AB-A041-A5B1C0B26C8F.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\NTUSER.DAT Object is locked skipped C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\ntuser.dat.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\DAEMON Tools\SetupDTSB.exe Infected: not-a-virus:AdTool.Win32.WhenU.a skipped C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\debug.log Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\rawlog.log Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\seclog.log Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\syslog.log Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\tralog.log Object is locked skipped C:\Program Files\Winny2\Winny.exe Infected: not-a-virus:Client-P2P.Win32.Winny.2b66 skipped C:\System Volume Information\MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase Object is locked skipped C:\System Volume Information\_restore{193BD39D-120D-4AFF-875A-455ED45AD674}\RP614\change.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\Debug\PASSWD.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\SchedLgU.Txt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\Sti_Trace.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2\edb.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2\tmp.edb Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\Internet.evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SecEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SysEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Application Data\Microsoft\IMJP8_1\imjp81u.dic Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\dtscsi.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\sptd.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\sptd7741.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\INDEX.BTR Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\INDEX.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING.VER Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING1.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING2.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\OBJECTS.DATA Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\OBJECTS.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\Temp\Perflib_Perfdata_56c.dat Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\wiadebug.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\wiaservc.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\WindowsUpdate.log Object is locked skipped L:\System Volume Information\MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase Object is locked skipped Scan process completed.

And this for another report: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:06:41 PM Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) Kaspersky Online Scanner version: 5.0.93.1 Kaspersky Anti-Virus database last update: 25/09/2007 Kaspersky Anti-Virus database records: 423055 Scan Settings Scan using the following antivirus database extended Scan Archives true Scan Mail Bases true Scan Target Critical Areas C:\WINDOWS C:\DOCUME~1\Rob\LOCALS~1\Temp\ Scan Statistics Total number of scanned objects 23639 Number of viruses found 0 Number of infected objects 0 Number of suspicious objects 0 Duration of the scan process 00:21:14 Infected Object Name Virus Name Last Action C:\WINDOWS\Debug\PASSWD.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\SchedLgU.Txt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\Sti_Trace.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2\edb.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot2\tmp.edb Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\Internet.evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SecEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SysEvent.Evt Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Application Data\Microsoft\IMJP8_1\imjp81u.dic Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\dtscsi.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\sptd.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\sptd7741.sys Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\INDEX.BTR Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\INDEX.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING.VER Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING1.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING2.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\OBJECTS.DATA Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\OBJECTS.MAP Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\Temp\Perflib_Perfdata_56c.dat Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\wiadebug.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\wiaservc.log Object is locked skipped C:\WINDOWS\WindowsUpdate.log Object is locked skipped Scan process completed.