Windows 10: How to identify annoying notification sounds

Hi all.

I have an annoying problem that is driving me nuts. I have a desktop PC (see specs) that is persistently giving two different notification sounds but not showing a banner in the notification area to tell me what is warning/notifying me of. I think I have determined what events are being triggered by changing each notification sound in turn to a distinctive chime that is not used elsewhere. The two events concerned are "Device Connect" and "Device Disconnect". Strangely I seem to receive many more disconnect notifications than connects.

The sounds spoil my enjoyment when listening to music or watching movies etc. Obviously I can switch the sounds off by selecting "none" as the sound to play with these events but, just as obviously, I would like to know what is constantly connecting and/or disconnecting.

I am connected to a home network but I'm connected via ethernet cable and am not attaching or detaching any other equipment when the sounds occur. I'm a bit worried that I'm being scanned over the internet but I'm connected via a cable modem/router. Is there any way to show the reason for these notifications?

BTW, I'm using Windows Defender and Firewall together with the paid version of Malwarebytes.

Cheers,


:)

 

Window 10 windows defender, malware, notifications

Window 10 widows defender, malware, how to stop annoying notifications pop up and and accompanying sound

 

How to turn off notifications sound?

I'd like to see only visual notifications, without this annoying sound. How do I turn it off?

 

I have an antique car horn "AHOOOGAAA...!!!" assigned for the connect and another breaking glass sound assigned to the disconnect when you go to unplug a flash drive or other usb plug in! You simply go into the Control Panel>Sound and open up the Sounds tab to disable or change the sound being a wav file for each and every function and save a new default sound scheme..

If you power up fresh or restart and suddenly don't hear one you assigned or hear something you know changed or disabled you simply go back into the Sounds tab and reapply the scheme you created. Ever hear a dog back when you go to right click on something? In 10 so far I haven't been able to get assigned for signing in as of yet while in 7 you saw the Windows Login and Logout sound options there.

 

Thanks.

I know how to change the default sounds, that's how I was able to identify the events that are causing the notification. I could switch the sound off but I need to know what is causing the events to trigger the notifications. I'm not doing anything that causes the event to trigger and there is no notification in the task bar, just the tones.

 

Sometimes 10 will redetect something you know is already plugged in. I've run into times when right after hearing the disconnect the cursor suddenly can't be moved around and had to sign out or on occasion heard the connect sound when the cursor had been moved a bit during startup but sat idle for the wait while things finished loading and then the connect sound was heard.

None of that however is frequent. On more occasions I might have to go in to set the sound scheme again since it got knocked out. Are you still on the upgrade install by chance? Or did you get to a clean install of 10 yet? Upgrade installs either see immediate headaches right away or something will creep up on you later as those problems tend to be slower in being realized.

 

I'm still on the upgrade. Can't bring myself to face the pain of re-installing all my software.

With regard to the notifications - I could be sitting looking at the screen without having done anything for ages and the tone is constantly going. In fact, as I'm typing this, the tone has sounded about 10 times. As I said it's driving me mad. If there's no way of finding out what is being connected/disconnected and as long as I'm sure it's not a port scan then I'll switch the notification sound(s) off.

 

I think you may have to lose the sounds until getting around to the clean install in order to get this sorted out! It's different however from the usual bugs heard about from upgrades! I'll have to give you that one for coming up with something new there! Occasionally one wav won't play and I might hear another while the sound scheme is still applied and then go in and look to reassign and save the plan again to see Windows(modified) or Default(2) having named the new plan default by intent when replacing the ones preassigned.

 

I had that and it turned out to be a dicey USB data cord coming from my UPS.

Might I suggest temporarily disconnecting all USB peripherals and see if it stops. Perhaps even going with a different keyboard/mouse if possible, assuming those involve USB in one way or another.

If it does stop process of elimination to determine which one.

If it's not something external perhaps review of Windows event logs will yield a repetitive event that shouldn't be.

 

Good ideas. I'll try those solutions and let you know.

 

Please do! This one definitely needs to be followed up on. Keep any usb flash drives, usb dvd, external HD, or any other devices plugged into a usb port? I might suspect an eSata port as well while I would need to get a new enclosure to use that type of port on the main case here. A printer can't be ruled out entirely either especially if left on.

 

An update.

There were NO events in any of the event logs that coincided with the notifications. I then went on to think about USB devices. I have few USB devices permanently connected and switched on. A film scanner and flatbed scanner were both switched off. I have a Datacolor colorimeter permanently connected to keep my monitor correctly colour profiled and calibrated and I have Wacom and Logitech wireless dongles for my wireless keyboard and mouse and my Wacom graphics tablet. The only other USB device is a USB3 powered hub plugged into a USB3 PCI card as my PC is too old to have been supplied with USB3 connectivity.

I have a USB3 card reader plugged directly into the USB3 PCI card as it is permanently connected and frequently used. In order to bring some USB3 ports closer to hand, rather than having to scrabble round the back of the tower when I need to connect a USB3 device, I bought and connected a small (cheap) powered USB3 hub and plugged that into one of the PCI card ports. As there was nothing connected to the hub I thought I'd start with that device and unplugged it. After a while it seemed that I might have found the culprit. The notifications seemed to have stopped. That was last evening (it's 06:45 UK time now) so I'll know a little later when I switch on the tower (I'm using my netbook to type this) whether my hopes are justified.

Fingers crossed.

 

Sometimes a hub can act like an antenna while with the number of usb type items there nothing can be ruled out including that PCI 3.0 card.

 

Problem solved.

It was the USB3 hub. Haven't had a peep out of it all morning.

As the old saying goes - Buy cheap, buy twice. *Smile

 

Must be something about the hub itself from a cheap design! Here I tend to stick with CyberPower and just replaced an older worn 4 port hub now discontinued while still having a pair of those still sealed in the original packaging with a 7 port model 2.0 CPH720P model hub.

I still have to get a 3ft extension for the 4 port 3.0 hub(different brand) I picked up at Amazon lately when finding a few buys on 3.0 flash drives right when 10 was just about to come out being the summer time clearances. So if you are goind to be looking for a better hub you can get a few ideas from those two places. I know Amazon has a site over where you are you can browse while the other links are CyberPower product pages.

At least you found the problem and for once it wasn't anything 10 related! *Biggrin