why do i hear random sounds playing even when my computer is sitting idle?

do you have remote access set up? Perhaps someone is accessing your mac?

Both of those things, the auditory and the visual, could be being caused by a process running in the background. Have a look in your login items for anything that could be the culprit. If that tells you nothing launch Activity Monitor (probably in /Applications/Utilities); set it to show All Processes, click on the "%CPU" tab (perhaps twice to bring CPU users to the top) and see what you can spot - you would be looking for something showing some CPU usage, possibly intermittently.

...and, BTW, it isn't a virus - Macs don't go in for that sort of thing! 🙂

What Dashboard widgets do you have open?

Also check Activity Monitor for processes running by your user. See if any of them could be causing the random sounds.

Perhaps you can describe some of these sounds, (or even record them)?

Message was edited by: gumsie

I randomly hear sounds on my macbook pro when I'm writing something, surfing the web, or even watching a movie. I randomly keep hearing the blowing sound one would hear if they were to drag an icon off their bottom row icons. I've done many system updates and computer shut downs and restarts, yet every hour or sometimes every few minutes I keep hearing that swish/blowing sound.

I looked on ACTIVITY MONITOR but there aren't any weird applications running. My laptop is barely a month old.


Does anyone have any ideas?

You're help is greatly appreciated!

Could be Adium set up. When someone signs in or out, it makes a sound.