Windows XP "Critical Stop" Chime Sounding Top of 1st Hour PC Turned On

Hello all,

I've been recently experiencing a new issue, where the Windows (I'm running XP) "Critical Stop" tone sounds on the top of the hour, but it only does so the first hour that the computer is turned on. For example, the I turn on the PC at 12:35, the chime sounds once at 1:00, but not at 2, 3, etc.

This issue seems very similar to Tom K's "Windows XP Critical Stop Tone Sounding on Hour-Top" posted 01-04-09, 01:30, and I don't see a resolution to his.

The problem seems to have begun shortly after I had a malware infection on 1/13; I subsequently ran anti-virus (CA), MalwareBytes anti-malware, Spybot, and Ad-Aware, which appeared to clean up all the malware problems, except that this one issue began (in approx that timeframe) and still persists.

Any ideas? Thanks for any help you can provide... Greg

 

Sounds like a Windows Time, Windows Time service issue. Left click on clock in the task bar and check settings. Also check services in Administrative Tools, (or start run, services.msc) to ensure the Windows Time service is running, At the moment mine is set to manual, usually set it to automatic. (Windows 7 Beta) If one internet time server isn't working you can change it through the clock settings in the task bar. Sounds like one of those things that can get under your skin...:mad Checked Event Viewer?

 

Thanks, Bugballou -
That doesn't seem to be the problem; the clock seems fine/normal, and the Windows Time Service is Started Automatic.

Interestingly, my wife's PC (also Win XP) developed the same problem about a week before mine did, and while we're loosely networked via the same cable modem/router (we don't directly share drives/files) the problem happens at the top of the first hour after either PC is booted up, and it happens regardless of whether one or both of our computers is on singly or simultaneously.

Neither PC's Computer Managment/Event Viewer logs reflect anything unusual or occurring at that top o' the hour timeframe.

 

Check you Scheduled Tasks for any suspicious entries.

I had this occur (which is how I found this thread) after a viral infection, a particularly nasty variant of Vundo that AVG couldn't detect. Anyway, having cleaned my Run registry keys of any references to the virus file, I couldn't figure out what was going on. It took your insight that it was happing on the hour to make me think of Scheduled Tasks. Sure enough, there it was, failing to find the executable on the hour. I deleted it, and problem gone.

 

Try running process monitor (http://live.sysinternals.com/procmon.exe) for about 2 minutes before and 3 minutes after an hour and post the log. That should provide us with enough information to find the culprit.

The concept is that for any sound to be generated on your computer by the OS it has to access a *.wav file. If we can identify what makes the call to beep.wav then we know what creates the sound.