System Beep through Soundcard

[DomAntPallot]

Does anybody know of a way to direct the system beep that comes out the internal speaker into my soundcard instead.

My old laptop already does this. I'm not sure why it does but I like it as I can adjust the volume.

Thankyou

 

[clbuck29]

Try going to control panel - Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices - sounds and audio devices - Advanced Audio Properties - and select the speaker scheme you want to use.

 

[DomAntPallot]

I'm afraid there are no options there.

That just gives me choices about speaker setup. eg. 4 speakers, headphones, laptop speakers etc

 

[MaxEd]

If you don't want the sound just disable it in the bios. I don't know if that was ever possible to redirect the sound to the sound card since your OS has to load before the soundcard is an available resource. Unless they got some new fancy motherboard that has changed all that.

-Laughter works miracles.

 

[wahnula]

I don't know if that was ever possible to redirect the sound to the sound card since your OS has to load before the soundcard is an available resource

My old (2002) Asus P4S8X mainboard has a "talking" POST that gets piped through the PC's external speakers. It does, however, have integrated audio, not a soundcard. It also allowed system speaker stuff like Sticky Keys beeps to come from the speaker system, not just the case speaker.

I am following this thread because I have been looking for a way to get the Sticky Keys beep back in the system speaker, in my case headphones, as it did on the old MB.

I may go as far as trying to connect the "case speaker out" to "line in" and play with the mixer controls to correct the ohmage mismatch, but at this point it's still an idle threat. I am hoping someone will come up with a more "correct" alternative.

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[LawnBoy]

Tony,
Don't do it. I've blown a sound card doing that. Your PC "speaker" is responding to a 3.3v or 5v square wave. This is not audio...



"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[wahnula]

Your PC "speaker" is responding to a 3.3v or 5v square wave.

Party pooper! I guess it will remain an idle threat.

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[LawnBoy]

Sorry, but I may have saved you the cost of a sound card...
That square wave will wreck a decent speaker, if those headphones are valuable you'll want to take them off the system.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[wahnula]

LawnBoy,

Standard audio line input also has voltage associated with it, correct? So if the soundcard can handle the input voltage of the case speaker output (I have a box full of old soundcards, right now I use embedded audio) would it necessarily pass it through to the speakers? If not how about an attenuator, like an L-pad?

DomAntPallot,

Sorry for jumping on your post but we both want the same thing!

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[LawnBoy]

When dealing with audio you have to maintain impedance values. An l-pad reduces the voltage while maintaining the impedance.

Now, the square wave being generated has an unknown impedance (if impedance is even a valid term when discussing a square wave). In any case, it won't match the impedance of the input of your sound card.

An audio engineer would insist that you must wave-shape and condition that square wave into a signal acceptible by the sound input. In reality, we're talking about very low-fidelity signals in the first place, so distortion is not an issue. The point is that you must reduce the amount of current being delivered to the input to prevent overloading and possible component frying.

An l-pad might work, a simple resistor in series might also be fine. I would try a 10k potentiometer (10-turn preferably) and you could adjust down from max until the signal is about as loud as your other sources.

I haven't done any audio design work in ages and ages, hopefully I haven't grossly oversimplified...


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[wahnula]

I haven't done any audio design work in ages and ages, hopefully I haven't grossly oversimplified...

Not at all. I did a turn at pro audio sound reinforcement and that's how I know about L-pads and other audio stuff, also great experience in learning how to troubleshoot. We would take the headphone out of a cassette player (before CDs) and pad down the input using the level adjust at the top of the mixer strip, keep the unit's volume super-low, and get a usable signal to play audio to the house. I used stereo L-pads to build a control panel for my home theater rig to control speakers throughout the house from the audio rack, I think I can handle this build. Like you said, we're not really talking audio here, just a square wave, but my old MiniMoog sure considered a square wave as audio!

I will hit Radio Shack and check their stock, and definitely use one of my scrap soundcards for the experiment. Heck, I might try it first on one of my scrap PCs. It's good to have a hobby.


Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[LawnBoy]

MiniMoog

Oooo! Mine sadly died many years ago, I'm now just using a midi kb to run asdr software on my pc. I sure miss my MM.

Good luck on the mod, let us know how it turns out.

"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes