XPS One 2710 beeping

Do you hear the bleeps on a regular basis with A10?  I had one system I had to return to Costco due to a touch screen issue (the Win8 charms bar was next to impossible to swipe out) and that system bleeped about every 10 mins or so.  The new system works great from a touch perspective.  I've heard the bleep about twice now (in a week of use) both times at or shortly after initial boot.  But the original system bleeped in regular use.

Still beeping away merrily. I presume that Dell support don't read these queries - or is it only those they can answer. I don't really want to call support until this is seen as a recognised issue  as obviously they don't know what is causing this - thus all the replaced motherboards etc.. a wild goose chase and complete hassle

Bought my 2710 last week and everything works great. Then this afternoon, I heard a few beeps and I didn't thought much about it. Then start to realize the beep is more frequent. 

I tried to copy a few large files ( over 2gb each) to see if this is a hard drive issue but I don't hear anything. The when I emptied the trash, the beep came back. The repeated the process, but I don't hear it again. Kinda annoy and I hope someone will find out the root of the problem. 

From the sound of it, it sounds like some system error or hardware issue. 

Has anyone fixed this?

I just received my 2710 last week and it is beeping while in the OS. Hardware diagnostics came back fine. As instructed by Dell, I reinstalled the OS, but it didn't help. A tech just replaced the motherboard. Afterwards, the PC wouldn't boot and went to the "Attempting repairs" screen but failed. It beeped while "attempting repairs." The repairs failed and I had to reinstall the OS. I doesn't beep at all while installing the OS or during POST. Other than the repair, it only beeps in the OS.

Still happening here. Been through tech support and they obviously have no idea why this is happening. Update software and BIOS to no effect. I can get a series of 25+ beeps at times, other times just a couple but it always starts approx 30 minutes after boot up. Sometimes as a result of software opening. I'm taking a guess at a Win 8 incompatibility somewhere, possibly USB, but nobody knows and unless tech support is going to wait for 30 minutes and listen, almost impossible to replicate

On two occasions I also started getting random beeps  One time I traced it to an  external drive with a faulty connection, so that the computer kept disconnecting and reconnecting the device.  The other time I had the computer set to use just a single desktop, although two other monitors were plugged in.  The beeps were apparently letting me know that more monitors were available.

My case has been escalated a couple of times and the current word from "engineering" is that the system is operating as designed. They claim that the beeping happens when Nvidia Optimus switches from the onboard graphics controller to the Nvidia card. I told them that I didn't buy that answer. The whole point of Optimus is that it handles the change while remaining transparent to the user. Why on earth would they (Nvidia, Dell, etc.) make the switch produce a loud beep that you can't disable? This led me to play with the Optimus settings and I never could produce a beep on demand. So I downloaded the "Optimus State Viewer." I can see when the video card changes from integrated to the Nvidia card (when opening Google Earth or other programs I have set manually) and there is no beep. However, the beep still occurs randomly, even when I'm not sitting in front of the computer.

Dell has been very good about contacting me and keeping me informed of the progress on my case, but I don't buy that Optimus is producing the beep by design at all.

I can reliably generate frequent beeping by plugging an external USB drive  into a plain unpowered USB 4-port hub.   This did not always happen, so I assume it is because of the number or nature of USB devices attached to the computer.

The beeps are associated with entries in the Administrative Events log: "Metadata staging failed, result={388267E8-C518-500A-87B4-870C0285F4FF} for container '0x80004005'", so if there are no events logged in your cases, then this is a separate phenomenon.

There are no event log entries when I hear the beep. Must be a different issue. Does your beep come from an internal source or does it come from the computer's speakers? Mine is internal.

My beeps are from external speakers (HDMI audio channel).  

I purchased my one 27 in Sept 2012 win win 7 installed. It had the included anti virus installed but not activated. After activating it the computer started with random beeping (not speakers) from the motherboard beeper. THis seemed to be associated with hard disk reads as there was a clicking noise at the same time. I removed the AV but the beep persisted. I simply lived with this. I upgraded to win 8 around December and hoped the beeping would stop but it continued. So i figured this probably wasnt an O/S related issue.  I still put up with it although annoying me I simply put it on the pile of "must fix one day". Anyway it finally bugged me too much and 3 weeks ago called Dell support. Now at this point I woudl like to say they have been great and supportinve throught the next 3 weeks of events.

Anyway, I had a nice email pointing out that I should apply all the latest drivers and the A11 BIOS update. They suggested the order  i should do this in and I downloaded from the supplied links. I applied the BIOS update and that was the end of my Dell for 2 weeks as it simply would not boot windows and was in the perpetual autorepair of death loop.

So two things here

1. This beeping seems to be common enough to warrent some attention by Dell that seems to be missing from this thread. Dell... If your listening.... what the beep beep beep is the beep all about... you must be able to correlate calls on this issue and make a  good guess on what this is... so how about you tell us?

2. The A11 BIOS update killed my PC and its still not able to run Win 8 but runs Win 7 fine (Dell were great at getting me back to at least having win 7 back in place ... but heck Ive paid for win 8 and I want it back!

Dell finally replaced my machine and the new one works perfectly fine with no beeping whatsoever.

For the most part, I was happy with Dell support. Someone would call me every other day or so to check on the status of the case. This is how my case went down:

• Started case with Dell
• Technician seemed skeptical about beeping
• Pointed him to this thread and he agreed to replace motherboard, PC still beeped
• I updated the BIOS, chipset, video card, etc., still beeped
• Next tech said the first one should not have replaced the motherboard
• He escalated the case until it got to "engineering"
• The official response from engineering was that the beep was by design due to Nvidia Optimus switching from onboard to Nvidia graphics and there was no way to disable the beep
• I told them there was no way that in 2013 a brand new, top of the line, Dell all-in-one beeped randomly without the ability to disable it, that the whole point of Optimus was transparency to the end user, and that I didn't believe his answer
• I downloaded the Nvidia "Optimus State Viewer" to show them the beep did not coincide with Optimus changing video cards
• Dell asked me to send them the "Optimus State Viewer" utility
• Dell agreed to replace the machine, but told me the new one would also beep since it is by design
• I received the new PC and it does not beep

So your replacement machine doesn't beep.

This random beeping has been driving me crazy since I bought the 2710 in late 2012.

I had previously thought it was something to do with my external hard drive backup but am relieved to find this thread.

I'll be even happier if a solution can be found...

Still beeping - then my screen started flashing/flickering. Dell replaced the screen and the motherboard - now I get fewer beeps(still a few however) but the new screen is flickering and flashing. Unless I am particularly unlucky I can't see how two screens would fail. I still believe it's a win 8 problem