What's This?

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If I press certain keys (sometimes it's random) on my Toshiba Satellite A665, the computer sounds like a bicycle horn for a second. What do you think this is?

You've discovered the undocumented "Bicycle horn sound-effect" keys?

Apparently some keys on the A665 beep loudly by design - the touch-sensitive buttons above the keyboard (media buttons, volume, mute etc), but it can be disabled via HWSetup (Toshiba utilities folder); choose HWSetup, click on the Button Setting tab, and disable “Function Button Sound Notification”.

Its a handy feature for cyclists enabling them to fasten the laptop to their bicycle handlebars so they can post on facebook while cycling in busy traffic. As a laptop is quite big it is often necessary to remove the bell / horn from the bicycle to make room for it, so they include a bike horn/bell sound effect as standard to replace it.

Glad to have cleared that up.

Oh wow - a way that I can do Facebook while riding my bike! I do so love Facebook - I have like a thousand friends and I spend all my waking time reading their hourly updates about every little thing they do and thought that goes into or through their heads and then I do the same like the other day I posted updates every time my washer switched to a different portion of the wash cycle which was hilarious because it actually got stuck on a soak cycle for the longest time and I thought it was broke so I posted on Facebook "WTF!" and all of my thousands of friends on there asked "What's wrong?" and so I posted "I think my washer is broke" and they all were like "Duh it is just soaking" and then I was like "OMG, LOL" and we all laughed and I even posted a pic on Facebook of my clothes all stuck in the washer while it was on the soak cycle which was a mistake because while I was doing that I almost burned the cookies I was baking it is my grandmother's recipe so I really did not want to ruin them though if I did I am sure that if I posted a pic to Facebook of the burned cookies then all of my thousands of Facebook friends would have just LOL'ed with me and clicked the Like button.


(Yes, that was my idea of sarcasm.)

I think I might've messed up my description. I'm talking about the keyboard keys, as in the ones you type with. Is it because of keyboard overuse, or something worse?

If you were to repeatedly mash several keys at once, very quickly, that would likely push too many characters into the buffer maintained by the keyboard hardware and from my experiences of this happening, a fairly unpleasant honking or beeping noise is usually produced.

It depends very much on what you or the machine are doing when it happens: sometimes it can occur as a result of the mouse not being focused on the correct GUI element to receive characters typed, or maybe because the machine is insanely busy with something and can't respond - or simply because what's typed is an error.
Some repeatable examples would be useful in tying it down - and the moment, all we have is "it beeps sometimes".

Maybe I should write a different discription again... It sounds like a small creaky sound and it doesn't make the sound when I type on the computer while it's shut off. Last night was the first time it ever happened on this computer. The last one creaked, too, but it also had a different kind of keyboard.

Sticky keys? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StickyKeys

I doubt it's Sticky Keys. I use it, but I know it's not that. It sounds like the keys are wearing out or something. But I'm worried that if it's not the keyboard that it's the hard drive getting ready to bite the dust, since it wasn't just the keys, but the touchpad buttons as well.

EDIT: It was doing it again tonight, right after I finished watching YouTube. I finished a Word document not too long after I watched YouTube, and the fan was running, and I think the CPU was running high at the time, too, but I didn't check.

P.S., This whole post could end up being a waste of time and it's just the drawing table that I'm using for a desk squeaking. That's kind of what it sounds like, yet I can never prove it.

I'm such a freaking moron! I was right about the last post! It IS my drawing table squeaking!

Thanks for the help, guys! I finally solved the mystery. My computer carries on, with no problems after all! Sorry for the fuss, everyone.

My ninja skills of deduction are just not that powerful, yet. Sorry I couldn't help.

It's okay. At least my computer's doing fine, that's the important thing.

omg tallyman - i must have a bike like that ! !

my thousands of Facebook friends get soooo bummed out when i ride my bike because they soooo miss my minute by minute updates.

mine beeps when it is on the ragged edge of crashing.