iMac Plays a Series of beeps around Midnight

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Level 1

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iMac Plays a Series of beeps around Midnight

I recently bought a used 2009 iMac. I erased the disc and started fresh.

If I do not shut the computer down every night, right around midnight, the computer plays 5 or 6 beeps (kind of a little song of beeps). It's always the same sound. And I can't figure out why it is doing it.

I've poked around System Preferences and do not see any alarms set in there. I have also made sure that iCal does not have any alarms set up to play at midnight.

A little more info about the iMac. It pretty much has nothing on it. I added Microsoft Office and that is it. I bought it so I can move some of my music over and get myself under 25,000 songs on my main computer (so I can use iTunes Match). Other than Microsoft Office I have not added any other programs onto the computer.

Has anyone else had this issue? Any ideas?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 30, 2012 6:36 AM

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Answer 1

Dave B.

Level 4

2,080 points

Apr 30, 2012 7:50 AM in response to Nemo Vox

Only thing I can think of is that 0:00 is midnight and maybe during set up and poking around or installing Office you opened something with a calendar or reminder function and turned it on w/o realizing it b/c you didn't enter any numbers and it defaulted to midnight. Just guessing.

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Answer 2

Nemo Vox Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 30, 2012 9:43 AM in response to Dave B.

Thanks Dave. I will look into that. The one thing I forgot to mention in my original post is the computer was doing this (playing the beeping song) before I erased the hard drive and started fresh. Even after I erased the hard drive the beeping continues at midnight. The computer did have Microsoft Office on it before I bought it thought so it's worth looking into regardless. Thanks for the reply.

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Answer 3

iCare

Level 4

2,490 points

Apr 30, 2012 10:04 AM in response to Nemo Vox

Do you play DVD's on your system? Another user reported that if he left a DVD in his system and paused the movie his system would generate a series of beeps late at night. If you have a DVD in the system try removing it to see if the issue goes away.

Discussion thread

Another person said they use Skype and the beeps were notifications as Skype contacts came online.

You may have to closely look at what you have installed on your system if neither of these provide clues. The Activity Monitor application (which can be found in the Applications/Utilities folder) can provide clues if you are willing to spend time looking at what processes are running and then using the 'Get Info' feature or googling any process names that are suspect to find out what they do.

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Answer 4

Dave B.

Level 4

2,080 points

May 2, 2012 7:45 AM in response to Nemo Vox

You're welcome. That is even more puzzling that it was there before the HD wipe, but if you cloned it, it brought everything over. Sounds like you didn't clone, so it points more to Office being the common denominator.

To add to iCare's thought (or maybe this is what he meant), you could open Activity Monitor at 11:59 pm and sit there and watch it.

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