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My computer is sounding the "Windows XP Critical Stop.wav" sound every 10 seconds.

Anonymous
2012-03-11T05:12:37+00:00

My computer is sounding the "Windows XP Critical Stop.wav" sound every 10 seconds for last 8 days.  Window XP SP3.  I spent 1-1/2 hours will dell workstation support and 1-1/2 hours with my work IT guy (helping as a favor on my personal computer) and they cannot find anything,   MacAfee installed, up to date, multiple complete scan no viruses.  Ran Malwarebyte multiple full scans - nothing.  Kaspersky lab - nothing.  Work IT guy ran a boot vrius detector and nothing.  No error logs being generated.  And both techies shut down various files in the task manager and NOTHING has made it stop.  I was sent a reinstall XP SP3 disc from Dell and I did a complete XP repair with no fix. IT guy checked a bunch of stuff and thought it was "relate to a driver."  Regardless of what is causing it, how do I find the problem and fix it.   Thanks,

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. LemP 74,925 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2012-03-11T21:56:12+00:00

    @GarySibley:

    Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad that you found it.  Although I'm not surprised that an msiInstaller error might have caused a "Critical Stop" but I wouldn't have thought that it would continue issuing the error ever few seconds.

    @JudsonWelcher:

    I suggest that you also check your Event Viewer for msiinstaller errors.  I've seen other posts where a "critical stop" sound seemed to be related to such errors (but as I said above, not to continuous repetitions of the error).

    There's no easy way I know of to track down this sort of thing.  Before you start the "Clean Boot" method or begin using Process Monitor, open the Sounds control panel applet and scroll through to check that Windows XP Critical Stop.wav has not been assigned to some event in addition to (or in place of) an actual Windows Critical Stop.

    For help with Process Monitor, go here -->http://forum.sysinternals.com/process-monitor_forum19.html

    To check your Java installation, go to http://java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-03-11T21:14:32+00:00

    Hey LemP

    You have been very, very helpful.

    After my first reply to you, I concluded it could not be QuickBooks related.

    It had to relate to the Java update.

    I went to my control panel, found Java and re-ran the update that was waiting.

    This time everything went smoothly.

    I re-activated my sound for critcal stop and it is no longer sounding every 5 to 8 seconds.

    Thanks for all your help!  I really appreciate it.

    You are a miracle worker!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-03-11T20:51:18+00:00

    Event Type: Error

    Event Source: MsiInstaller

    Event Category: None

    Event ID: 10005

    Date:  3/10/2012

    Time:  8:40:09 PM

    User:  GARY\Gary Sibley

    Computer: GARY

    Description:

    Product: Java(TM) 6 Update 31 -- Error 25099.  Unzipping core files failed.

    For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

    Data:

    0000: 7b 32 36 41 32 34 41 45   {26A24AE

    0008: 34 2d 30 33 39 44 2d 34   4-039D-4

    0010: 43 41 34 2d 38 37 42 34   CA4-87B4

    0018: 2d 32 46 38 33 32 31 36   -2F83216

    0020: 30 33 31 46 46 7d         031FF} 

    Event Type: Error

    Event Source: QuickBooks

    Event Category: Disk

    Event ID: 4

    Date:  3/10/2012

    Time:  6:15:31 PM

    User:  N/A

    Computer: GARY

    Description:

    The description for Event ID ( 4 ) in Source ( QuickBooks ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: QuickBooks: Premier Accountant Edition 2008, DBConnPool::HandleConnectionError errorCode:-6069, dbCode:-103 from file:'..\src\ConnPool.cpp' at line 863 from function:'DBMgr::DBConnPool::init'.

    Thanks for your reply.

    Here are two errors:

    The QuickBooks errors seem to occur frequently and have never seemed to cause any problem.

    The Java unzipping error occured during an update.  I was not too concerned about it because I thought it would update at some other time.

    Either way.....the persistent critical error sound did not start until i booted up my computer this morning.

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  3. LemP 74,925 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2012-03-11T16:54:00+00:00

    @GarySibley:  You're just masking the problem (whatever it is).

    To both:

    Take a look at the Event Viewer (Start > Run > eventvwr > OK)

    Look in both the System and Application logs for any error or warning messages, particularly ones that repeat.

    Don't scroll down very far, particularly if you're hearing the sound frequently.

    If any error/warning is found, double click to open the Properties sheet.  Click the "copy" icon (just below the up/down arrows) and then paste into your Reply here.

    Also take a look at Scheduled Tasks (click All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Scheduled Tasks) and see if there is a (very frequently) scheduled task that is having problems.  In the Scheduled Task, window, click Advanced > View log to look at the log of scheduled events.

    If you still can't track it down, the tool to use probably is Process Monitor.  You'll have to run it for a few seconds around the time when you expect to hear the sound and then analyze its log.

    Alternatively, you can use the tedious "clean boot" method:

    Start the computer in Clean Boot configuration --> (method 2) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

    Assuming that starting with all of the non-essential things stopped the sound, re-enable things in a systematic way (e.g., half at a time) until the problem comes back. 

    Keep repeating until you narrow down what application or service is causing the problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-03-11T14:04:18+00:00

    Interesting.  I started having the same problem this monring.  Last evening when I turned off my computer everything was fine.  This monring the critical stop.wav sounds every few seconds,  it looks like you spent a lot of time trying to correct the problem.  I went to sounds in my control panel and set the sound option to "none" for critical stop. That solved the problem.  What is a critical stop?

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