Strange 'beeping' keyboard typing on PB15

1. Have any text file that is longer than the height
of the screen and would require scrolling.
2. Open the file in an Apple text-editing program,
i.e. XCode or TextEdit.
3. Scroll down the file until five or six of the
lines that were below the screen are now visible.
4. Start typing

Confirmed with TextEdit on my “high-res” PowerBook.

This ticking sounds occur at every key press, regardless of different tested settings in power management/energy savings.

I have experienced this "beep" on my brand new powerbook. It is hard to explain how it sounds exactly , so I attempted to record one such "beep". Here is the Quicktime sample

http://homepage.mac.com/amirbars/Powerbook/iMovieTheater149.html

1-Now my experience is that it occurs intermittently every 10 minutes
2-Its not caused by the keyboard (ie I wasn't using the keyboard at the time)
3-It comes from the inside the computer and does not output through the
speakers


I'm not sure what causes it, and I'm curious if this is the sound everyone keeps refering to. I thought an actual sound byte might help unify us on this issue and hopefully help us figure out the cause of said "beep" and whether it anything we need to worry about.

Cheers



Powerbook G4 Hi Res 1.67GHz Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1G Ram, 120 G Hard drive

Powerbook G4 Hi Res 1.67GHz Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1G Ram, 120 G Hard drive

I'm getting the same problem, after upgrading to Tiger (10.4.5) from Panther (10.3.9) just last night.

Yesterday = no beep. Today = beep. It only seems to occur for me in text editors, when I'm editing some text that I've already typed. The problem doesn't occur in Firefox, for example, where I'm typing and editing this beep-free paragraph.

The 'energy saver' and Universal Access settings seem to do little for me -- there may be some change in the regularity of the beeps when I switch from 'Highest' to 'Automatic' processor performance, but the beeping definitely doesn't stop altogether.

I read on another forum that this seems to happen to one user only in apps that use 'NSText'. Although I have no idea what that is, I thought maybe I'd throw that in here, too, in case it inspires anyone to some kind of amazing forehead-slapping breakthrough, like "NSText! Of Course! Why didn't I think of that before! Here's the solution you've all been looking for..."

It doesn't happen for me in the Mail app. And only occasionally when I'm typing in Safari. Like right now I don't hear it while I'm typing this reply, but sometimes it's there. WAIT! I just came back to edit this and the beeping started..just like you said, "when I'm editing some text that I've already typed"

If I put my head right down on the keyboard when it's happening, it sounds like the hard drive is chirping. Maybe there's some connection to ram...I've just learned to ignore it for now, but it would sure be great if they could get someone to figure it out. It does give me a wierd feeling when I hear it happening.

One other thing to note is that I see you have a 1.33 PB. If that's true, the this problem is not limited to any particular PB. I have the 1.67 hi rez model.

"One other thing to note is that I see you have a 1.33 PB. If that's true, the this problem is not limited to any particular PB. I have the 1.67 hi rez model."

True. Also, most of the folks experiencing this problem (myself included) seem to be using a 15" PB.

My powerbook is currently now in it's third week at my local apple centre because of the large number of irriating noises it makes.

1) Chirping keys in Safari

2) Intense CPU sessions in Motion cause a grinding hamster wheel sound that matches the playback framerate of the session. The same happens in final cut pro.

3) When i launch Pro Tools with my Mbox the powerbook makes a loud static crackling sound.

The Chud Tools workaround does cure all of these problems, but why should i disable a CPU feature when i paid £1300 for a laptop. If they dont sort it out soon then i will go to the lengths of the powerbook defect guys because it's just a joke. I have a feeling apple will try a cop out and say that if the noise doesnt exceed 39 dbA then tough luck, that what they said about the Segate HD noises.

The majority of my work is done in absolute silence with no audio so i'm now at the point where i just wont use my powerbook because it drives me crazy, no probs with the G5 iMac whatsoever.

I'll post back the outcome, i have a feeling this is a Powerbook thing and not an isolated incident, we'll see.

dudes,

I fixed it. It's a system preferences thing:

Pull up System Prefs from the dock, go to Keyboard & Mouse. Under the Keyboard tab, fiddle with the "Key repeat rate" and "Delay until Repeat" sliders until it goes away. I went "Left", and have no chirps now ⚠

-a

Changes nothing for me. I still have that dull beep on each typed letter.

Any other suggestions???

When you say "dull" beep, are you referring to the loudness of the sound or the actual quality of the noise? My beeping sound is a sharp tick..almost a high pitched tone with a precussive attack, however, it is not very loud.

Anyway, I changed all those settings the previous guy posted and the sound is still there for me, but only in Safari....at least I have not noticed it in any other apps.

Changes nothing for me. I still have that dull beep
on each typed letter.

Any other suggestions???

I fixed it. It's a system preferences thing:

Negative.

Pull up System Prefs from the dock, go to Keyboard &
Mouse. Under the Keyboard tab, fiddle with the "Key
repeat rate" and "Delay until Repeat" sliders until
it goes away. I went "Left", and have no chirps now

I tried setting both sliders to maximum left (coming from maximum right). The chirping sound remains.

(Additionally, then the keyboard is so slow that you one cannot work. So even if this was a solution, it would be useless.)

PowerBook 15,4 G4, iBook 12 Combo G3 800 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I confirm this is happening to me. In fact, I recently noticed the problem late at night when I was working in a quiet environment and ever since, have noticed it all the time.

I searched google to see if my issue was isolated and found this thread. So I'm not going crazy after all 🙂

I confirm it's not limited to Safari, as I had first thought. I opened up TextEdit and got the noise there. The reason I initially never noticed it in TextEdit is that I don't seem to edit TextEdit documents very often.

* So yes, I confirm you must be editing text. In addition, it's not enough to just be editing text, but it needs to be several characters/lines worth of text. Just one, tow or even three lines of text doesn't produce the effect.

* Next, I hear the sound regardless of the volume on the computer. I can mute it and still hear it.

* It does seem to be just slightly under a rate of one 'tink' for every key press--provided the key press results in a printed character of significant width. Shift and other modifier keys don't produce the sound, and even option-e doesn't produce the sound until I type another character to inherit the '´' accent. Pressing a key that produces a narrow character (such as [ or |) doesn't always produce it unless you type more than one.

* I do have my cpu set to maximum performance. I used to have it on auto up until about a week ago, so this strongly suggests a correlation and why I never heard it before.

My theory is that this has something to do with the number of characters that have to be displaced into new positions when typing in a new character. Once you exceed some threshold, something must be happening that requires some process to occur on each key press that produces this sound.

FWIW, I've noticed this on a 15" PB G4 purchased last October that wasn't used until I was given it in January. I mostly notice the beeping when typing notes into Stickies.app, which confirms the Apple-text-editors observation. The sound is so noticeable that at first I was convinced it was a system preference along the lines of MS Word's "sound effects." However, I haven't found any way to turn it off, and it doesn't happen consistently, so it does appear to be a strange glitch of some sort. Fortunately, it doesn't really bother me -- I just sort of vaguely think, "oh, it's beeping again" -- but it is curious.

There have been enough complaints about this, that it would seem Apple should have responded with a fix, or some explanation, at least.
You're right, it's not extremely bothersome, but a bit annoying. Kind of like a squeak somewhere in the new BMW you just purchased....and it isn't there all the time.
I'd be impressed if Apple would give us something here.

What worries me is that this is related to processor performance.

What if this is some kind of feedback or static or some other nasty symptom?

I feel the fact that the noise is related to processor performance and can be heard even when the speakers are off indicates a hardware problem of some kind.

If I knew the noise was as innocuous as it seems, then I'd probably manage to ignore it despite the fact that it should be fixed on principle. However, suspecting it may be hardware related makes me a lot more leery and demanding of a fix.

I don't have the problem continuously in all apps. For example, right now, nothing. In Mail, notta. If I go back and edit this text, I can probably make it happen. However, that does not hold true in Mail or Appleworks or an assortment of other apps.
To me it seems like a software issue, with possible hardware interaction.
Just fix it, is the message to Apple. Seemingly benign, but still an annoying squeak in my new expensive tool that I use every day.