I see when I select 'process tree' in Process monitor that the Taskhostw comes under a svchost.exe with a command ending in 'Schedule' and which in Task Manager under the relevant PID is named 'Schedule' with description 'Task Scheduler'. Not sure what that tells me yet, surely nothing is scheduled every 30 seconds or does the Sceduler check every 30 seconds and if so why create a sound.
I'll disable the Killer services ready for my next reboot anyway as RoHe suggests as it sounds harmless.
The sound persists after BIOS update to 1.1.15 and strangely if I change my 'close program' sound to something other than Utopia Critical Stop the 30m second sound changes accordingly but if I set 'Close Program' to No Sound the 30 second sound reverts to Utopia Critical Stop ( but Process Monitor doesn't spot that one ).
A Service Request was raised, I guess by Dell Cares, but I can't get to see it as my e-mail addr is rejected against Service Tag and Service Code.
I'll add Dell's Remediation Service to the disabled services but that will be along term negative test as the Mouse freeze is very infrequent.
It is strange that if you set 'Close Program' to 'No Sound' it would revert to 'Utopia Critical Stop'. Does it actually revert in the Sound Program Events settings or do you just hear the 'Utopia Critical Stop' sound? Previously you stated that "It does not sound if I set the sounds theme to 'no sounds' ", but I guess that is different than just changing the 'Close Program' event to 'No Sound'.
Vic384 it doesn't revert in the Sounds Program Events, that stays as 'no sound' but the sound is heard. Also Process Monitor still filtering on 'Utopia Critical Stop' doesn't trap the process - boggling eh ? Process monitor only catches the process when the 'close program' sound is set to Utopia Critical Stop and I guess that wav file is accessed.
I have yet to detect which Task Scheduler task is started.
The PC has been restarted three times by the BIOS update but not with the afore-mentioned services disabled. I can find the PID and am getting near to simply ending the task and praying but I'll wait till after the Monday reboot as opposed to my usual sleep/wake and possibly after the Killer wi-fi update offered by Dell.
@ThomasIvan Mind boggling to say the least. Perhaps the sound is not 'Utopia Critical Stop', it just sounds like it, which I think means that the 'Close Program' is not the event causing the sound. Does that make sense?
Except that the sound is always that currently associated with 'close program' even if I change the 'close program' sound to something else like 'balloon' to be distinctive.
Thanks for your continued interest.
Tom
EDIT: Yes the event might be something other than a program being closed but that it has hit upon my 'close program' sound and won't let go.
Back up personal files on external media to be safe.
Open CMD prompt window, Run as administrator
At the prompt, type in: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and press Enter. Copy errors, if any. Be sure to include one space before each /.
Back at the prompt, type in: sfc /scannow and press Enter. Copy errors, if any.
I am going to do a reboot (rather than sleep/wake) Monday AM with the Killer and Dell Support Assist Remediation services disabled. Dell Cares has provide some audio and graphics driver updates to apply and after that I may need to try the more drastic surgery you advise. Thanks again Tom
On Sunday evening I disabled all Killer services and the Dell Support Assist Remediation service following advice from the Community and shut down the PC. On Monday 3rd Aug I rebooted ready to install the drivers Dell Cares provided. The 30 second process and sound have gone ! There are occasional close program sounds at irregular intervals, sometime of several minutes which I guess are normal background processes. I have rebooted before to no effect, that's without any disabled processes.
On Sunday evening I disabled all Killer services and the Dell Support Assist Remediation service following advice from the Community and shut down the PC. On Monday 3rd Aug I rebooted ready to install the drivers Dell Cares provided. The 30 second process and sound have gone ! There are occasional close program sounds at irregular intervals, sometime of several minutes which I guess are normal background processes. I have rebooted before to no effect, that's without any disabled processes.
Any guesses ?
That's a bit of progress. You shouldn't be getting sounds from any background processes. I never hear any system sounds from my XPS 8930 PC, aside from connect/disconnect USB devices.
Did you disable all Dell services in services.msc?
And maybe it's just time to run a repair on Win 10 or do a clean install of Win 10...
I've always had random sounds generated on this 8930, my wife's 8900 and my W7 8500 (now being retired). I do have a sound set for most events listed in Sounds - open and close program, device connect, new mail and notifications etc. always noisy at startup and logon. The only Dell service I disabled was remediation.
Few min later and I'm getting random background "close program" sound now, in addition to hearing it when I close an app or just one of the open browser windows. All I have open is Firefox and Thunderbird (email) and things running in background like McAfee plus all the required Windows functions/services.
Also hearing "close program" sound when I open a window by clicking a link in an email which opens a new FF window, even though I didn't set a sound for "open program"
Noticed something jumps to top of CPU usage list in Task Manager when the random beeps occur, but it happens so fast and disappears that I haven't been able to see what process it is.
Much as my experience. The difference was the regular 30 second repeat which caught my attention. Process Monitor caught the process using the Close Program wave file as a filter and showed Task Scheduler as the parent in show tree tool. I'm reluctant to experiment with re-enabling services or anything else now it's gone quiet.
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
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July 29th, 2020 11:00
I see when I select 'process tree' in Process monitor that the Taskhostw comes under a svchost.exe with a command ending in 'Schedule' and which in Task Manager under the relevant PID is named 'Schedule' with description 'Task Scheduler'. Not sure what that tells me yet, surely nothing is scheduled every 30 seconds or does the Sceduler check every 30 seconds and if so why create a sound.
I'll disable the Killer services ready for my next reboot anyway as RoHe suggests as it sounds harmless.
Tom
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
July 31st, 2020 07:00
The sound persists after BIOS update to 1.1.15 and strangely if I change my 'close program' sound to something other than Utopia Critical Stop the 30m second sound changes accordingly but if I set 'Close Program' to No Sound the 30 second sound reverts to Utopia Critical Stop ( but Process Monitor doesn't spot that one ).
A Service Request was raised, I guess by Dell Cares, but I can't get to see it as my e-mail addr is rejected against Service Tag and Service Code.
I'll add Dell's Remediation Service to the disabled services but that will be along term negative test as the Mouse freeze is very infrequent.
Tom
Vic384
4 Operator
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3.2K Posts
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July 31st, 2020 07:00
It is strange that if you set 'Close Program' to 'No Sound' it would revert to 'Utopia Critical Stop'. Does it actually revert in the Sound Program Events settings or do you just hear the 'Utopia Critical Stop' sound? Previously you stated that "It does not sound if I set the sounds theme to 'no sounds' ", but I guess that is different than just changing the 'Close Program' event to 'No Sound'.
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
July 31st, 2020 08:00
Vic384
it doesn't revert in the Sounds Program Events, that stays as 'no sound' but the sound is heard. Also Process Monitor still filtering on 'Utopia Critical Stop' doesn't trap the process - boggling eh ? Process monitor only catches the process when the 'close program' sound is set to Utopia Critical Stop and I guess that wav file is accessed.
I have yet to detect which Task Scheduler task is started.
The PC has been restarted three times by the BIOS update but not with the afore-mentioned services disabled. I can find the PID and am getting near to simply ending the task and praying but I'll wait till after the Monday reboot as opposed to my usual sleep/wake and possibly after the Killer wi-fi update offered by Dell.
Vic384
4 Operator
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3.2K Posts
0
July 31st, 2020 09:00
@ThomasIvan Mind boggling to say the least. Perhaps the sound is not 'Utopia Critical Stop', it just sounds like it, which I think means that the 'Close Program' is not the event causing the sound. Does that make sense?
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
July 31st, 2020 11:00
Except that the sound is always that currently associated with 'close program' even if I change the 'close program' sound to something else like 'balloon' to be distinctive.
Thanks for your continued interest.
Tom
EDIT: Yes the event might be something other than a program being closed but that it has hit upon my 'close program' sound and won't let go.
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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July 31st, 2020 12:00
Have you ever tried repairing Win 10?
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
August 2nd, 2020 13:00
I am going to do a reboot (rather than sleep/wake) Monday AM with the Killer and Dell Support Assist Remediation services disabled. Dell Cares has provide some audio and graphics driver updates to apply and after that I may need to try the more drastic surgery you advise.
Thanks again
Tom
GKDesigns
258 Posts
0
August 3rd, 2020 06:00
@ThomasIvan
Any guesses ?
Removing the Dell SupportAssist Remediation Service solved the micro freeze issue as was previously suggested here: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-freezes-for-3-5-seconds/m-p/7502259/highlight/true#M46495
GK
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
August 3rd, 2020 06:00
On Sunday evening I disabled all Killer services and the Dell Support Assist Remediation service following advice from the Community and shut down the PC.
On Monday 3rd Aug I rebooted ready to install the drivers Dell Cares provided. The 30 second process and sound have gone ! There are occasional close program sounds at irregular intervals, sometime of several minutes which I guess are normal background processes. I have rebooted before to no effect, that's without any disabled processes.
Any guesses ?
RoHe
10 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
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August 3rd, 2020 09:00
That's a bit of progress. You shouldn't be getting sounds from any background processes. I never hear any system sounds from my XPS 8930 PC, aside from connect/disconnect USB devices.
Did you disable all Dell services in services.msc?
And maybe it's just time to run a repair on Win 10 or do a clean install of Win 10...
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
August 4th, 2020 03:00
I've always had random sounds generated on this 8930, my wife's 8900 and my W7 8500 (now being retired). I do have a sound set for most events listed in Sounds - open and close program, device connect, new mail and notifications etc. always noisy at startup and logon. The only Dell service I disabled was remediation.
Perhaps 'background' is the wrong word.
Tom
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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August 4th, 2020 11:00
@ThomasIvan - UPDATE:
Few min later and I'm getting random background "close program" sound now, in addition to hearing it when I close an app or just one of the open browser windows. All I have open is Firefox and Thunderbird (email) and things running in background like McAfee plus all the required Windows functions/services.
Also hearing "close program" sound when I open a window by clicking a link in an email which opens a new FF window, even though I didn't set a sound for "open program"
Noticed something jumps to top of CPU usage list in Task Manager when the random beeps occur, but it happens so fast and disappears that I haven't been able to see what process it is.
Very weird, indeed...
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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August 4th, 2020 11:00
@ThomasIvan I set a sound for "close program" on my XPS 8930 so lets see if I start getting random sounds now...
ThomasIvan
23 Posts
0
August 4th, 2020 14:00
Much as my experience. The difference was the regular 30 second repeat which caught my attention. Process Monitor caught the process using the Close Program wave file as a filter and showed Task Scheduler as the parent in show tree tool. I'm reluctant to experiment with re-enabling services or anything else now it's gone quiet.