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Well, I shouldn't laugh, because I've probably done equally dumb things, but still...
Got home from work at 1 pm as usual for a Thursday, had a quick lunch and ran off to a guild meeting. Got back from that at 4 and Gary was upset with his laptop. Seems he started out to copy a DVD (data files, not video) using the laptop. Then he realized that since the laptop has only one drive, it has to do that by copying all the data to the hard disc, then swapping DVDs and writing the data back out. Not very efficient, and it was going to take more than an hour to do. He cancelled out of the operation.
A few minutes later, the laptop issued a loud beep. It kept doing that every five minutes (precisely) while he tried everything he could think of, including a reboot and even pulling the battery out. It continued to make one loud beep at precise five minute intervals. When I got home he had a timer set and was looking for any kind of activity just before the beep came. Nothing. I couldn't see what was wrong either, but the machine has Windows 7 which postdates my Windows knowledge by a significant few steps. He said it would beep even while it was turned off.
I searched the web and found multiple reports of similar behavior in HP laptops, none of them really resolved, going back several years.
We decided he'd have to back up to the previous sync point and see if that cleared it. First he ran a backup of his user data, and while that was running he went to choir. He got back from rehearsal while I was fixing supper, and I told him the machine had continued to beep at regular five minute intervals. Just as I was putting out the soup, he came into the kitchen with a sheepish look, holding his cell phone.
It was the phone that had been beeping. It was plugged into the charger sitting on the desk next to the laptop. The cheap phones we have will beep and ring when they receive calls while charging, even though they are set to vibrate instead of ringing. Sure enough, he had some idiotic spam text message waiting for him to acknowledge it, and the beep was an attention reminder. The laptop was innocent.
The moral of this story is: Never assume that anyone is guilty just because they seem to be the prime suspect.
Got home from work at 1 pm as usual for a Thursday, had a quick lunch and ran off to a guild meeting. Got back from that at 4 and Gary was upset with his laptop. Seems he started out to copy a DVD (data files, not video) using the laptop. Then he realized that since the laptop has only one drive, it has to do that by copying all the data to the hard disc, then swapping DVDs and writing the data back out. Not very efficient, and it was going to take more than an hour to do. He cancelled out of the operation.
A few minutes later, the laptop issued a loud beep. It kept doing that every five minutes (precisely) while he tried everything he could think of, including a reboot and even pulling the battery out. It continued to make one loud beep at precise five minute intervals. When I got home he had a timer set and was looking for any kind of activity just before the beep came. Nothing. I couldn't see what was wrong either, but the machine has Windows 7 which postdates my Windows knowledge by a significant few steps. He said it would beep even while it was turned off.
I searched the web and found multiple reports of similar behavior in HP laptops, none of them really resolved, going back several years.
We decided he'd have to back up to the previous sync point and see if that cleared it. First he ran a backup of his user data, and while that was running he went to choir. He got back from rehearsal while I was fixing supper, and I told him the machine had continued to beep at regular five minute intervals. Just as I was putting out the soup, he came into the kitchen with a sheepish look, holding his cell phone.
It was the phone that had been beeping. It was plugged into the charger sitting on the desk next to the laptop. The cheap phones we have will beep and ring when they receive calls while charging, even though they are set to vibrate instead of ringing. Sure enough, he had some idiotic spam text message waiting for him to acknowledge it, and the beep was an attention reminder. The laptop was innocent.
The moral of this story is: Never assume that anyone is guilty just because they seem to be the prime suspect.
