Why Computers Don't Beep at You Anymore

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Learn about old internal PC speakers and their surprising abilities.
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[@techquickie]

Get a special deal on Private Internet Access VPN today at www.piavpn.com/TechQuickie

[@jordanferrazza8700]

I was wondering what happened to the likes of Private Internet Access and Intuit QuickBooks

[@volf3r505]

Because the SOY like you stopped putting in the BEEP speaker that is why.

[@AnarchistHamster]

​@@jordanferrazza8700 Is that sarcasm or is QuickBooks good, I genuinely don't know, & I just started considering choosing a simple accounting software that WON'T collect info about me. I'm clueless & skittish about accounting software.

[@HappyCookie404]

Hey im in a difficult situation. My little brother is signed into my microsoft account with me, His computer has more storage than mine so he downloads stuff like gta 5. Mine has about half his storage. Si anyways even though ive deleted most of my games my gigabytes arent going down and I have 269 out of 303 gigabytes for just having owned 2 games, team fortress 2 and minecraft, These games maybe take up like 60 gigabytes I know they cant take up over 200. Is there a way to fix this mess or will I just have to make a new microsoft account and start from scratch, I mean ive spent like no money on this microsoft account so I can let him keep this one and just make a new one but would the process be difficult, will it wipe my desktop clean, Will I have to make new accounts on the games I play. The other weird thing is when I go into my Local Disc, There are 2. one has about 1.81T of free storage and ive tried going into it but its not letting me so its basically sitting there, the other is where my storage is. I guess im just not sure of what to do and I cant find any tutorials maybe since ive explained this you can help??

[@mandai2]

Hey have you heard the drama about KZbin Premium blocking VPNs now?

[@mokahless]

One thing you glossed over is that at some point in the mid 2010s, motherboard makers seemed to stop including PC speakers as a cost cut, because case makers were including them. Also, case makers seemed to stop including PC speakers as a cost cut, because motherboard makers included them. End result: No one included them. Working tech shops back then, I'm sure we're all familiar with our hoard of PC speakers in a drawer suddenly starting to dwindle.

[@Dragoonoar]

weird. my gigabyte gaming 3 H170 had it. i 'downgraded' to an asus b760m prime and it didnt come with one. i thought perhaps it was limited to high end motherboards?

[@Xnoob545]

My H81M-S2PV PC does come with one It's from 2013 btw

[@harrylane4]

@@Dragoonoarless about the quality or price and more that its just not a universal feature anymore. Some have it, some don’t.

[@John-du2mq]

I want to know why they need to cut cost when they charge me 300 bucks for a motherboard.

[@Toastybees]

​@@John-du2mqA few cents per board when you're making thousands adds up. They're nickel and diming the quality and features away.

[@DrSardonicus]

There was an entire symphony of sounds coming out the PC. The HDD spinning up **wwffffzzzz** or the floppy disks groaning **nnngggrrrdd** and that grinding **chg chg** Using a computer in the 90s was a very noisy experience even without speakers.

[@nopadelik9286]

I remember i had a pretty bad arguement with my ex-girlfriend back in the 90s because she just couldn't stand the enormous noise anymore that the old IBM Model M keyboard was making while playing Quake 2 online with friends the whole night 🤣

[@avicohen2k]

​@@nopadelik9286 You played quake online and had a girlfriend? Not sure that checks out..

[@dwisworo332]

and a few minutes later the dial up modem would likely join the orchestra

[@hubertnnn]

If you want a symphony of computer parts search on youtube for "floppotron"

[@H33t3Speaks]

@@dwisworo332EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERKKZZZZZZZZZZZEEEETEEEEEEE

[@BobMotster]

Still have a speaker from a 2003 Albatron build. Beeps cheerily at me every time I turn on my PC.

[@jimjam742]

saaaame, i have a lil dongle-ish one that i plug into the header on every PC build thus far

[@Tullowit]

@@jimjam742 I have a similar one and do the same.

[@bubsy3861]

i get my current one along with the case (i think) 5 or so years ago. its basically sticks to motherboard. And i cant imagine to use pc without it. if pc wont beep its starting to pissing me off hard.

[@TMIncorporated]

@@bubsy3861 where do you get something like this? I'm collecting parts for my pc build and would love to add that in!!

[@bubsy3861]

@@TMIncorporated Probably with my old case. But its nothing special. Basically very tiny speaker without wires that hanging on the connector.

[@Aeturnalis]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="159">2:39</a> skip ad

[@_Lassic_]

Lol

[@redpheonix1000]

1 long beep + 3 short beeps is a sequence that's burned into my mind from so many failing AGP cards in recent years

[@BlindLibrary]

Or one of me personal faves: 3 long beeps, 4 short beeps on an HP AIO computer. Indicates not enough voltage.

[@jswrenn]

In grad school, while my advisor was away for travel, I orchestrated the PC motherboard speakers of a 80-machine computer lab to be controlled in realtime by a MIDI keyboard or file. If you played multiple notes at once, they'd be distributed to the computers in proportion to their relative loudness. The notes were allocated in a round-robin fashion, so the music would gently sweep around the room as you played. The computer lab had been donated years prior by Sun Microsystems, so we dubbed the virtual organ "Vox Solaris" ("the voice of the sun"), a play on "vox humana" which is a traditional organ stop. We held a few performances with a live pianist, and plenty of late night experimentations with black MIDI files.

[@gus473]

😂 Splendid! 🎵

[@jswrenn]

In case anyone would like to replicate this, the whole thing is open source! It consists of three components, which are all on GitHub: - "bam", an ALSA MIDI driver for beeping the motherboard speaker - "midinet", an a utility for blasting MIDI notes over a network - "midiplex", MIDI demultiplexer for distributing the keyboard's polyphonic output into monophonic streams for each computer I think there's a couple of videos of it on my KZbin page, too.

[@metacerberusVT]

I wouldve loved to have seen this. Any idea if any of those late night black midi sessions ever got video taped and posted on youtube?

[@Devastator0]

hahahahaha, love that, what a legend!

[@hubertnnn]

Hehe, it reminds me of a similar project I made in my school times. Except I was using a single PC and the bottom two rows of letters on a normal keyboard as input.

[@Pyrobob4]

I grew up with computers that had these, but by the time I got around to building my own PC (not just tinkering with pre-builts), the speakers had gone. A few years ago a friend of mine bought a super low end motherboard for a project, and it actually came with a speaker! I convinced them to let me have it, and now my modern, mid-range, RGB filled gaming PC has that delightful, classic startup BEEP. I love it more than I should.

[@mokahless]

Yep. Starting about 10 years back, the PC speaker drawer filled with tons of spares - because both cases and MBs came with them - suddenly started to dwindle because even one supplying them seemed to become less common.

[@claudej8805]

I simply connected a speaker to the header on my B760M mobo. Most motherboards do have a dedicated header for diagnostic

[@Light-DelaBlue]

you can still plug them in most motherboard normaly.

[@JohnDoe-ip3oq]

​@@Light-DelaBlueexactly, the connection is there, but you must provide your own speaker now

[@MajorMokoto]

100% still have a PC speaker in my tower. It's how I know it turned on. I couldn't imagine not having it.

[@pixGu]

I see your point, but the solution would be (assuming you don`t have a see thrue case or you have your pc on the floar) to have a light inmdicator on your power switch. Many modern cases come equipped with a one and installation of this panel i pretty much just 1 cabel+all of your usb cabels;)

[@ZizoMass]

Same

[@angryox3102]

I see the RGB come on and the loud fans start making noise on my PC. There isn’t any ignoring when my computer turns on.

[@aphixe]

I still have mine from my 2020 build. still in system, it is a smaller speaker. but its important to me to know if there is a hardware issue.

[@aphixe]

@@angryox3102 its more than knowing your fans spin, that a pc speaker is used. if you watched the video i am sure you know why.

[@vorno102]

My PC still has a speeker that I use for debugging if it won't start. I'd miss that beep!

[@SupraSav]

I do miss those beeps. As someone with bad ADHD I would probably lose focus before waiting for 8 beeps or something, though. For that reason I like the motherboard lights.

[@AlexanderPavel]

My motherboard has a setting to enable a beep on POST, so my PC beeps everytime I turn it on.

[@RBzee112]

My motherboard has a PC speaker header. I bought some on eBay, so I could hear the beeps 😊

[@OtterBops]

Same. My mobo doesn't have the 8 segment display for error codes so it's actually quite useful.

[@OleksiyPastushuk]

Recently I have ordered a butch of motherboard buzzer speakers just in case.😉

[@shenghe9876]

The Sound Blaster cards have a socket for the PC speaker so that sounds from old games (as well as system beeps) will play through the desktop speakers.

[@jeremyg4650]

I wrote malware in the early 00's that would play fun jingles through my friend's speakers, like the Super Mario theme. It was a fun prank at the time.

[@H33t3Speaks]

Also the Javascript cupholder, cursor stealers… C L A S S I C!

[@JPkerVideo]

That’s not malware, that’s funware!!!

[@kunka592]

@@JPkerVideo He forgot to mention the part where it deletes the C: drive. Fun times.

[@WolfBearHybrid]

I still use it, the sound is kind of different, but I really like that beep at the start up (call it nostalgia) besides, the post codes are really useful.

[@LojikSupreme]

I have a ProArt X670E based system and I still installed my old motherboard pc speaker. Incredibly useful for error troubleshooting. Some habits never die. And yes, I still love the post beep! 😁

[@kakurerud7516]

you can get the 8 ohm .25w paper speakers still and it should sound exactly he same beyond the newer beep codes.

[@jeral999]

Yep.. I have a stack of piezo speakers with the default 4 pin connector.. still install (when there is a header) and turn on POST beep in bios.. I have heard my pc rebooting (for some reason) from anywhere in the house.. love it.. and yes.. I Started working on PC since 1983 LOL..

[@hrayz]

I do this too. Always concerning when I hear a random reboot somewhere in the house 😅

[@audioengineUS]

You know you've made it when your speakers are mistaken for the original PC speaker! 😎 Thanks for the shoutout, Linus Tech Tips!

[@villianinglasses8284]

I've got a pair of your A2+ on my desk and i love them!

[@zerocal76]

@audioengineUS so I'm a bit of an audiophile and got curious enough to check you guys out. 1 hour later, ordered a pair of HD4s for a mid-sized room where I'm mounting 3 tvs vertically side-by-side. Project: Window to the World room 😎🤓 I'm sure I'll add a sub later on!

[@livegolfismygt]

Your speakers have been great! From school through colleges, and now back home, these A5+ are still kickin

[@FireFoxDestroyer]

PC Speakers still beep at you when the computer doesn’t POST

[@jeinnerabdel]

My PC's MOBO only blinks a light in a particular way ( like visual beeps) but no sound.

[@markusTegelane]

only if you plug in the little 3/4 pin speaker connector that is attached to a small speaker inside your PC case

[@mozzjones6943]

Yes. Because if it doesn't POST, Then it will beep you the code causing that problem lol. I still use the PC speaker in my modern rigs, I just find them real handy as an immediate warning.. And I know all codes now.

[@mattstewart8730]

​@@jeinnerabdelbecause you haven't installed a speaker. I promise it is trying to beep

[@Mark-vr7pt]

I always install beep-speaker as a respect for traditions.

[@Jennifur68]

My PCs beeps...I always put a speaker on the motherboard.

[@hrayz]

I build and diagnose PC's (mostly for friends now-a-days) and have a few PC Speakers to plug in to hear those POST Codes.

[@Jennifur68]

@@hrayz BEEP!

[@michaelblair5566]

My first computer was a Commodore VIC 20 with 5K of RAM and a 6502 running at 1Mhz. in 1982. Yes, I am old now.

[@belstar1128]

ironically it had better sound than most expensive ibm pc's from before the 90s

[@Guitartube25]

Bought a PC case like two years ago and it came with one of those speakers. Never had one of those so I plugged it in and enjoy the reassuring beeps every time I boot up my PC, knowing that things are okay and if they are not I will be informed immediately without having to pry open the side panel.

[@mikrohamster]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="118">1:58</a> For anyone interested: the game/soundtrack is the selection screen from Pinball Fantasies (1992, from Digital Illusions, which today is known as DICE). If you want the best version of the soundtrack, look for the Amiga500 version. Imho, to this day, one of the best videogame soundtracks ever

[@Roxor128]

Isn't it just a MOD file? Surely that would sound the same mixed on a GUS as an Amiga?

[@Corle0ne]

@@Roxor128 Not that I'm an expert on the technical side of things, but the Amiga sound was far superior too what most PCs could produce at the time, making some game producers release some pretty amazing versions for the Amiga vs what the PC crowd could get. In other words it was up to them and not your choice of hardware how the games would sound. Ofc there were games with proper GUS-support, but afaik not all that many games really took advantage of those capabilities.

[@RickRobinsonDonnellan]

I loved (and still do) the theme tunes to these Pinball Dreams/Illusions/Fantasies games. Additional fun fact, the theme tune was made by Olof Gustafsson of DICE, whom was also involved with making the original Battlefield 1942 sounds.

[@chekote]

I remember when my brother first booted up pinball fantasies on his old PC with no sound card and I was blown away when I heard real music coming from it. I was like “What black magic is this?!?!”

[@luisdlcz]

From the begining of the video I was thinking about Pinball Fantasies. It was very thoughtful of them to include it.

[@juancriolivares]

Pinball Fantasies has so many tricks to run smoothly on 386... it's underrated

[@VincentGroenewold]

Loved those games on my Amiga, if you had one of those machines you were treated with actual speaker sound long before the PC had it. Great times. :)

[@chekote]

@@VincentGroenewold I was an Amiga kid long before I could afford a PC. In fact, I still have an A1200. The Amiga holds a special place in my heart. That audio is iconic.

[@marenjones6665]

I keep one in my machine. It's nostalgic, and post codes are a lifesaver when things get bad.

[@H33t3Speaks]

High end boards have had a 2-digit alphanumeric led display for almost two decades now. Much better than the old PC_SPKR from days of yore. I like the quiet, but I do still have an old piezo somewhere to troubleshoot really serious issues.

[@Roxor128]

_IF_ the motherboard manufacturer has bothered to document the bloody things!

[@Moustair]

My laptop makes sounds too. When i play a game and laptop heats up the fan lets me know that the laptop is hot by making violent vibrations, violent sounds and at times shaking the whole desk.

[@patricksingh9069]

If it's doing that you should replace them or open them up for cleaning

[@in5aneguy597]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="20">0:20</a> I need one of those, less for the beeps but more for the boops

[@bgezal]

There were two kinds of PC speaker. The original full speaker that could use pwm to do nice sound, and then there was the later simpler piezo speaker that could only do the beep (fixed voltage in = self induced tone out).

[@vampcorpse]

i work a t a PC repair shop and we keep and internal speaker handy to help us diagnose stuffs, we even built a usb speaker to help with laptops

[@theblindbluebomber1666]

I installed one of these in my box, I like the beep and when something does go wrong I find it easier to listen to the beep tones than read the code on the POST card (Which as well as my needing a magnifier to see is usually hidden behind one of my optical drives)

[@AskMrScience]

As I recall, you had to disable BIOS clock ticks to get much more than single tones out of the speaker. More trouble than it was worth. I never thought I'd need to remember that!

[@Roxor128]

Not strictly necessary, but it would have been a convenient way to get a consistent source of timing for making the necessary updates to the speaker system.

[@4RILDIGITAL]

It's fascinating to see how much PC speaker technology has evolved over the years. This certainly brings back memories of the early computer days.

[@TomO-nx1bd]

I bought a little speaker for my PC's motherboard so it still beeps when it boots. It's useful in case there is a problem during bootup. For example it will beep multiple times if the CPU fan has a problem and stuff like that.

[@simonlb24]

OMG! <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="117">1:57</a> - Pinball Fantasies! That's one of my favourites.

[@cobaltong2]

😁

[@FardinMirza]

ironically i kept the speaker and installed it on my new pc lol it still beeps when it starts and i love it I can't live without it i hate that it's gone now

[@personalaccount1515]

Dude 2 weeks ago i had to buy a speaker(buzzer) because that stubborn mobo refused to boot and the stingy maker didn't put one in the box. I really love that warm beep that let you know that every is ok.

[@mokahless]

The inclusion suddenly seems to have stopped being so common starting about 10 years back. It was annoying: our work drawer filled with spare speakers (because both case and MB came with them) started to dwindle (because most of the time, now neither come with them).

[@Casualc4]

help my computer is still beeping at me

[@orlagh277]

Did you forget to feed it?

[@theskyblockman]

I have a 4 year-old pc that still beeps at me, that's not that old

[@Jourei_]

Beep back at it

[@markusTegelane]

If it beeps continuously, check your fans, one of them might be busted

[@night_light2867]

​@markusTegelane nah that will stop you from booting and tells you the problem

[@mangu8s]

My still recently built ryzen 5600x system has pc speaker. It nice to heard that old school sound even if this system doesn't officially support any of old system which still use pc speaker for everything else than post codes.

[@grtninja]

I still use a beep speaker in my ryzen 5800x3d rig, mostly because the msi x570 motherboard doesn't have a code screen. This particular beep speaker is older than Ryley and originated from a 386sx pc I built in the 90s. you can turn on post beep in the bios in most pcs still, and most motherboards still have the header.

[@ThePurplePassage]

I guess the PC speaker is the one component that is truly future-proof

[@JohnToddTheOriginal]

Yes, I still use the PC speaker. I want to hear the POST beep every time I fire the computer up or reboot. Sometimes the old simple ways are very useful.

[@1ace1000]

Now there's something I haven't *heard* in a while and honestly, I'm still impressed at the innovation that went into pushing those little speakers to put out more than beeps for sound, before we got proper sound equipment and such.

[@Roxor128]

And there's two ways to do it, too. One is PWM, which sounds good, but is quiet. The other is a single-bit approach, which sounds terrible, but is much louder. The single-bit mode involves setting up the timer-chip that drives the speaker to output a constant voltage, then turning the speaker-enable gate on and off quickly.

[@CyberJedi1]

Still have mine from 20 years ago, every time I upgrade my motherboard, I take care of it and plug into the new one :)

[@mcborge1]

I still use a Piezo buzzer speaker on my main rig, i've used the same exact part in every rebuild going back to my first build, an AMD K6-2 400 on socket super 7.

[@joelcarson4602]

My Commdore 64's SID chip laughs at your PC speakers. Quite a bit later on my Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 laughed at both my C64 SID chip and PC speakers. And this progression has continued.

[@Playingwith3D]

I am old enough to remember the original IBM PC thanks for rubbing it in that I'm getting old. I'm balding too, want to take a swing at that too? lol

[@haplopeart]

I stil add a speaker. I find that beep on boot up (especially the first boot, or any "first boot" after changing something) to be very satisfying and comforting.

[@H4X0R_666]

Mine still does, I always connect a PC speaker, I have a proper cone speaker in mine from an old PC instead of the piezoelectric ones, I like the beep and also it's useful for troubleshooting when you don't have a post code display, debug LEDs are not as useful

[@ArchOfWinter]

I added one to my current PC when I was building it after I ran into some problem. The beeping helped me find the issue and I just left the speaker in.

[@LunaStar666]

I'm so happy that my MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus MOBO has a PC speaker and I do use it!

[@lucassanchez8939]

I bought my desktop new in 2013 and it has a built-in speaker that emits a startup beep. Didn't know more modern computers didn't have that. Now I feel special. :)

[@win2kpioneer]

I still do use the PC speaker, it is a lot easier to hear the beep codes rather than have to go under the desk and look at the LEDs on the motherboard to determine the post code.

[@someguyoninternet802]

The beeping, hdd and cd makes the best sound ever combined

[@sonicjhiq]

My pc came with a pc speaker when I got it, it beeps at me every bootup, I have no plans to rid of it

[@kmieciu4ever]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="212">3:32</a> Crusader: No remorse!

[@social3ngin33rin]

What are you talking about, my Alien beeps It's mostly Apples that don't beep. When I POST, people at my University freaked out when they hear it in lecture. Omg I forgot what these old sounds sounded like

[@ashtonmiller-z1n]

well they don't beap unless you want them to but they still make error tones but you can cosmize your error tones to your likeing like ring tone cosmztion before you could comzime your ringtones. in fact mac os 7 8 9and on wards had the cosmizable error tones like cosmizble ring tones BEFORE THERE WHERE COSMIAZBLE RING TONES even beofre smart hpnoe even existed. heck i would swapn my G3 imacs error tone like thsoe swapeble smarthpnoe ring tones before smart phone costzable ring tone even exested. did you know also apple was bacly also. was diong text to speach like all teh way back with like mac os 8 and mac os 9 back in the say also thast where voice coamd sistems like seri where bacly babys back then but still where a thing still.

[@mokahless]

And custom builds. Cases don't come with them because MB come with them. Oh also, MB don't come with them because cases come with them. So uhhh... today neither come with them (usually).

[@social3ngin33rin]

@@ashtonmiller-z1n interesting, I've never heard an Apple product make a beep noise as a function before.

[@ashtonmiller-z1n]

@@social3ngin33rin the much odler ones did like the apple II all the way up to the very ealry powerpc apple comptuers. back in the 1980's and late 1990's in the past.

[@UnbanMeNowOfficial]

Fascinating to recall the journey of PC speakers from simple beeps to full-range audio. It's amazing how far we've come with technology.

[@Lemoncit0]

It's so sad that I can't distribute a Virus that forces your PC to play Megalovania in absurdly low quality

[@throwaway6478]

The vastest majority of motherboards still have a four-pin header for a speaker. Piezo speakers are $1 each on ebay. As such, every desktop in my house beeps at startup, no matter how young or old it is.

[@rosiefay7283]

You underestimate your audience! Some of us remember the '80s. Some of us were using computers in the '80s.

[@Vash.Baldeus]

Even today you can install a motherboard speaker, I tend to install those when I build a rig. Shit helps my non super tech savvy family members figure out if there is an issue.

[@bjugler]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="6">0:06</a> Windows 8 😂😂

[@Sooka12]

Controversial take:Windows 8.1 wasn't actually too bad

[@melanodis]

​@@Sooka12 wholeheartedly agree

[@cristianoreddevil9736]

​@@melanodis Windows 8.1. was awesome. Windows 8 was horrible

[@melanodis]

@cristianoreddevil9736 oh on god, but since windows 8 already dropped the ball nobody batted an eye when 8.1 bandaided everything

[@clorophilla]

I still cling onto it, as it usually is parte of the first diagnostic software available on a PC. And it saved me some troubleshooting.

[@JohnneyleeRollins]

mine does

[@gustavocoimbra2398]

I remember being blown away when I heard actual voices from the PC speaker while playing Martian Memorandum. Thanks for the nostalgia hit!

[@Shinchan1221]

Idk man maybe R2D2 had enough of this bs

[@nekogod]

Many motherboards still have a header for an internal speaker, though these days their error reporting duties have been taken over by led readouts

[@Ken-t8k]

When I build a computer for myself, I definitely install a pc speaker for that lovely beep, even if I have to order it separately.

[@tjarsun]

I keep a piezo buzzer on my "emergency can" as it works as a troubleshooting tool for checking a non posting pc.

[@cellfourteen]

My motherboard came with a speaker that you could install yourself. It's so satisfying to hear the short old-school peep before my day starts off.

[@Rockovissi]

I remember my friend’s brother got an IBM PC and watching him playing Wolfenstein 3D using the internal speaker. I was blown away. Then he eventually got a sound card and speakers and was blown even further away.

[@aaroneidinger]

I remember finding a sound driver for this so you could play music, etc. from within Windows 3.1. It worked, but wasn't too spectacular. When I built my current computer during the pandemic, I noticed it had a speaker header so I got a five-pack of piezo speakers and installed one on the board. It let's me know it's alive whenever I turn it on. I also have a serial and parallel port on my computer because there were headers on the motherboard. I may never use them, but they're there. I don't do RGB, so I even routed the USB headers outside so they can be used for things to plug in.

[@doujinflip]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="271">4:31</a> "Which capacity did you install on your M.2 slot?" "500 to 5000 Hz" "What"

[@GetIrked]

The Home Theater PC I'm watching this video on at this very moment is an i7-4770K and it has a working PC speaker that beeps at me every time I boot it up! My first PC was an Apple IIe back in 1980 and it did NOT beep at me. My 1984 Macintosh did "BONG," though. 🤔

[@DeadKoby]

I have a few piezo buzzers that we use to help with diagnostics in our shop.

[@ChristopherHailey]

Most (or at least a lot) of motherboards still have pins for a speaker. I put little speakers in my machines because the post beeps are actually useful and the speakers only cost a few cents.

[@anubis1800]

I bought a pack of 15 speakers for $12 and i put them in any PC i build. Its just more convenient than not having it.

[@Strike_Raid]

There was a speaker 'port' at a particular address; essentially, a status port. To energize the speaker coil, you would set a certain bit in the port address to 1; to de-energize the coil, you would set the bit back to 0. In other words, you had to write to a particular address where one particular bit in the byte you were writeing would control the spaker (other bits did other things, you had to account for that). It's pretty CPU intensive.

[@RetroSwim]

Almost. You set the divisor on the programmable timer to determine frequency (two IO writes), then enable its output (one IO write). The square wave output from the timer is what goes to the coil in the speaker. Once you start a tone (by enabling the timer output), you can do other things while that tone continues, but you need to perform a second IO write to stop it. The techniques used for PWM playback abuse things a bit and do use a load of CPU time, but you certainly don't need an IO write for every oscillation in the general use case.

[@Strike_Raid]

@@RetroSwim The only time I ever wrote to a speaker port, I wasn't using it at as a speaker, so it was like this: IN AL,61h MOV BL,AL OR AL,00000010b AND BL,11111100b OUT 61h,AL CALL PAUSE MOV AL,BL OUT 61h,AL it was generating a horizontal sync pulse for a descrambler.

[@BlackAndWhite_22]

i remember when the electricity dissapeared in the whole city and when it came back my HP vectra keeps beeping without stopping

[@GMCLabs]

I remember installing a PC speaker driver that I got from winmag back in the 90s.You were able to actually play any music you want through the pc speaker.

[@anonymouschicken20]

My childhood computer had a cone speaker, and a loud one at that. It was from 2003, quite late for a cone. My cousin's computer from 1999 did not have a PC speaker, instead the manual says that it has to be connected to external speakers in order to be diagnosed through audible POST beeps. (It was a Compaq)

[@grandmoffporkins]

Use of Pinball Fantasies for illustration was so on point.

[@dferr18]

"Dinky Little Dpeaker had to offer" made me giggle, so I liked this video.

[@billyeveryteen7328]

I've had the same mobo speaker in every one of my builds since 2003. Take that, Theseus!

[@KittenoftheBroccoli]

I need my beeper speaker. It gives me the more or less immediate comfort that there's nothing wrong when I start my computer.

[@mudkipman98]

Not only do I use the speaker in my personal rig, but our school district PCs, all Lenovo, still use their internal speakers for errors during POST. We disable the successful POST beep, but I've heard the beep pattern for RAM a lot recently as our machines are starting to age out. Very handy for hardware troubleshooting.

[@argvminusone]

How old are they?

[@mudkipman98]

@@argvminusone just over five years. P330 Tiny's mostly. 8th gen Intel procs

[@argvminusone]

@@mudkipman98 😨 You're seeing RAM fail after only 5 years?? That's shocking. RAM that's _50_ years old often still works, let alone 5.

[@mudkipman98]

@@argvminusone yup. One DRAM chip overheats and quite literally melts. All the more reason to clean out the dust in those tiny PCs very frequently

[@jirosaves_theworld]

i salvage Beep speaker from my PC from my childhood era to and adapt to my current build because it's such an nice to heard whenever it boot

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

I remember that some sound cards recreated the beep from the internal speaker so you would still hear the beep codes if the computer failed to pass POST without the internal speaker. This was a long time ago, and I think I remember that Azetech soundcards supported this. This was back when they competed with the original Soundblaster card with it's 8-bit digital sound. I think they were even making 16-bit audio cards before SB.

[@throwaway6478]

They didn't really. There were plenty of cards that had PC speaker passthrough (my ES688 AudioDrive had it), but they required you to connect your PC speaker out on your motherboard to the PC speaker in on your sound card - they didn't do anything clever like sniff the system bus or timer chips, sadly.

[@Roxor128]

@@throwaway6478 Had a SB16ASP back in the day. It came with such a passthrough cable. Never used it, though.

[@tacoswamper]

I stuck a pc speaker that I found in a 20 year old box of hardware in my attic in to my new am5 build. Kinda neat to have the old school beep from my days in the computer lab in a modern glass case full of LEDs.

[@Enderborn272]

I have an old 2009 desktop acting as my NAS and server, it gives cheerful beeps whenever it has successfully rebooted or i send a shutdown command. It's very helpful for headless systems.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

Many motherboard manufacturers still put a tiny speaker on a PCB, or at least leave pins to attach an external one. Pretty useful to know if your machine is not bricked right now.

[@kylesucks3432]

The only part i`ve keept over the years is the bios speaker. Its so soothing hearing that same affirming beep of that POST is successfull for over 10 years.

[@Nonspecies]

I dont missing that scrap beep! A silent system while starting/booting is very nice and having a silent system while work is very nice too.

[@paulraider2001]

I still have my speaker from the late 90's. It came included with some work related system and I ended up with it in my original rig. I've had it ever since. And I remember the computers as far back as the early 70's.

[@JosedelaMancha]

I actually have a 2024 rig (Ryzen 7xxx), and I have bought a PC speaker specifically for it. I like hearing that sweet "single beep" sound on every startup. It soothes me, because it means that everything is alright POST-wise :)

[@RainbowGin]

Just built my new computer and the first thing that came over was the PC speaker, I'm happy I did because it helped me get it posted.

[@cpljimmyneutron]

Pause.... PUT THE SPEAKER IN YOURSELF. You might not like it, but it will save you when your PC suddenly doesn't boot, and you can get an error code without opening the case, or even if your mobo doesn't have a diagnostic screen or lights.

[@harmez7]

in myself?

[@cpljimmyneutron]

@@harmez7 That is literally what I said, good luck, make sure you get the correct pins.

[@harmez7]

@@cpljimmyneutron WHA?!

[@michaelepica3564]

@@harmez7bro really, in the computer by yourself.

[@harmez7]

@@michaelepica3564 oh...

[@cjc363636]

The beeps go along nicely with the classic grinding sound of the booting drive.

[@Roxor128]

Remember a beep when booting? I still get one. And out of a proper cardboard-cone speaker, too. Also got a couple of builds where I added cheap piezo ones because the cases didn't include anything. Unfortunately, the motherboard manufacturers often don't document the beep codes, so even if you do connect a speaker, you have no idea what the error message means.

[@ELCrisler]

Many of you younger folks today do not recall when creating sound, even with a good sound card, increased load on the PC. One of the things Sound Blaster did was essentially make a sound co-processor that actually accelerated the sound creation to offload it from the CPU.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

Remember when playing a MP3 file would demand something like 70% or more of the processor time? Some slower computers couldn't even play a single MP3 encoded file without strange hiccups. Today you hardly see any CPU load when playing the same files. But I remember ManicMiner on a ZX Spectrum was able to play a game play music of I think four simultaneous channels. And that also had the dreaded on/off speaker without any hardware to simplify things. And that was a running on an 8-bit CPU, the Zilog Z80 at 3.5 MHz.

[@throwaway6478]

@@blahorgaslisk7763That was because MP3s need to be decoded into PCM for playback. Of course your Speccy didn't store its "samples" in MP3 - not even PCs did until they got to 1GHz or more.

[@ELCrisler]

@@blahorgaslisk7763 I miss the days when sound card tech was evolving; Awe64, Live! and Audigy where amazing. Now all sound devices feel like derivatives of the same design.

[@dikranpoladian4724]

I always add a BIOS speaker to all by builds for myself and my clients as it makes it easier to quickly diagnose via beeps and know the system has POSTed without having to stick your head in the case.

[@CoolDudeClem]

I remember a computer from 2002 that had an internal speaker. What I did was disconnect it from the motherboard and instead connect it to the "headphone" output so it would play sounds like an external speaker would. It worked quite well and as I recall it could even go reasonably loud all things considering.

[@tiagotiagot]

I remember back when I somehow managed to get a software audio driver for Windows 3.11; no multi-tasking or hardware acceleration, the whole computer would freeze while any audio played, and only come back to life when the sound finished playing....

[@myaiua]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="34">0:34</a> Thank you for inserting this sweet-sweet sound of childhood!