Disable PC Speaker Beep on Thinkpad T60P in Windows Vista or XP


There are few things that drive me more nuts than having stupid beeps coming out of my laptop – even when the volume is muted. To permanently disable the beep emitted from the pc speaker on the Thinkpad T60P, follow these crude instructions.

  • To test the problem, open a command prompt and try typing “echo “, then press ctrl and the ‘g’ key, then press enter. Beep!
  • In the control panel, go into the System Device Manager.
  • From the View menu, select “Show Hidden Devices”
  • In the Non-Plug and Play devices, disable the “Beep” Device (Properties, “Driver” tab, Set the startup to disabled and stop it)
  • To test the solution, open a command prompt and try typing “echo “, then press ctrl and the ‘g’ key, then press enter. No beep!

This should fix other applications which use the PC speaker to issue those pesky warning beeps.

Note: I forgot to mention, but “Chuck” reminded me that you should also enter the BIOS and disable the alarms in there as well to totally remove the beep.

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February 8th, 2007
20 Responses
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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Kevin Gunn
Posted on:
March 1, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Thank you! That beep was driving me nuts!

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Ævar
Posted on:
March 1, 2007 at 2:39 pm

ahh works like charm on vista, had forgotten about this trick, thanks!

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Chuck
Posted on:
March 1, 2007 at 6:51 pm

This Windows-based trick did not work for my T60. Instead, I had to go into BIOS (press F1 during boot-up) and then adjust the Alarm setting to turn off the system beep.

Now the beep is gone!

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Benjamin Chodroff
Posted on:
March 1, 2007 at 6:55 pm

Yes, I should mention that you have to do *both* the BIOS and Windows change in order to get rid of it completely. I will edit the blog post - thanks!

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Sarah
Posted on:
March 27, 2007 at 1:45 pm

Brilliant, thank you for solving my problem!! It was driving me nuts.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
cwoller
Posted on:
April 5, 2007 at 3:49 am

Thanks, you saved my day :)

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Richard
Posted on:
May 1, 2007 at 9:29 am

You are my hero.

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Erik
Posted on:
May 30, 2007 at 2:34 pm

Ah…dude, thank you! The goddamn beep was driving me insane!

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
ELM
Posted on:
July 19, 2007 at 6:22 am

On linux, disable the beep by adding:
xset -b
to your .xsession (or other x startup script). Works as long as you are running X.

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Haakon
Posted on:
August 21, 2007 at 12:36 am

Thank you very much. No more pain adjusting the volume while using a headset.

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
Stefan
Posted on:
September 9, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Thank you, you just saved my ears :)

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
Ben
Posted on:
October 15, 2007 at 2:11 pm

worked for me on my Dell Optiplex 745.

Thanks!

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
erik
Posted on:
October 25, 2007 at 8:39 am

Thanks alot! Deffinently my hero of today

/E

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
Tudor
Posted on:
November 8, 2007 at 2:27 pm

Thanks a bunch, man. It worked on my T60 without changing the BIOS setting. But I haven’t rebooted yet, although device manager said I should do so. I’ll add another comment if it turns out that changing the BIOS too is really needed.

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
BEEP BEEP BEEP « The battered thoughts of SteinBein
Posted on:
November 13, 2007 at 12:48 pm

[...] Anyways I’ve found the solution.. I’m pasting it here, but it was found on this site: http://www.benchodroff.com/ Thanks for [...]

Comment Number:
16
Written by:
Mike
Posted on:
November 20, 2007 at 12:47 am

My, my finally that annoying beeping noise is gone for good! Thanks a lot!

Comment Number:
17
Written by:
5tein-O
Posted on:
December 13, 2007 at 8:47 pm

When I went to disable it, it BEEPed at me once, then again, then a confirm BEEP just as if it were in its death throes. Beautiful!

Comment Number:
18
Written by:
FeLiZk.dk » Blog Archive » Disable PC-Speaker
Posted on:
January 20, 2008 at 10:11 am

[...] Found the instructions here Benchodroff: [...]

Comment Number:
19
Written by:
Loïc
Posted on:
January 21, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Thanks so much, that noise was driving me crazy… especially when I was coding (${} *BEEEP*).

I would just like to clarify some things:
For all the beeps you hear they are related to the BEEP device EXCEPT when you deconnect the power (to disable this beep, you need to go in the Bios as pointed by Chuck)

Comment Number:
20
Written by:
sOn
Posted on:
July 12, 2008 at 8:31 am

Thanks alot. Works fine on IBM Thinkpad R60.