computer beeps when hardware is being initialized

[oyester]

My program goes through a fairly long initialization process. While the program is initializing hardware (an oscilloscope and a picoammeter) it beeps twice. I figure that there is some sort of non-critical error occurring. I figure that I could use divide and conquer to find where the error is occurring but I was wondering if there is some way to "capture" a beep and turn it into an error message.

[Dennis_Knutson]

The most obvious way is to use the Err? query that most instruments support and that most instrument drivers use.

[JÞB · Accepted solution]

Huge question!  does the computer "Beep" or does one of the instruments in the system "Beep?"

[muks]

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@oyester wrote:

My program goes through a fairly long initialization process. While the program is initializing hardware (an oscilloscope and a picoammeter) it beeps twice. I figure that there is some sort of non-critical error occurring. I figure that I could use divide and conquer to find where the error is occurring but I was wondering if there is some way to "capture" a beep and turn it into an error message.

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but your hardware is working alright?

[CMW..]

Hey,

maybe the Windows Event Viewer is a good starting point to track down the "beeps".

More information about the Event Viewer here.

[oyester]

It's very embarrassing to say this. I checked with my supervisor, and , when certain hardware has been found, a beep notifies us. So actually, if I didn't hear two beeps, something would be wrong. No I didn't write this. The previous guy, who is now my supervisor, wrote it.

[billko]

Thank you for being courageous enough to post the findings here.  It takes a lot of guts to admit something like that, and maybe it will help someone else out on down the road.  🙂