Fun fact: back in the 90s, some motherboards would start playing "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" through the internal speaker if the CPU fan was failing. So if you started hearing that, that meant your computer was about to fry itself.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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I miss those lil internal speakers, games sounded so fun when made up of variations of a high pitched beep.
They're still there.
My mom gets a scam page on her browser like once a week. It jams full screen and she cant remember F10 or winkey to get it to where she can kill it (#retirees). So it'll play "you have a virus. Call the number on the screen" through her internal speaker and USB headphones looping the same minute-long speech for days until she calls me to fix it.
I can only imagine.
HAL 9000 vibes
So that's why my Furby started screaming Feliz Navidad before its battery exploded
Do you have any idea how weird that was the first time someone brought one of those in? We absolutely refused to believe him - we were an ISP that only did a little PC work - until we had it on the bench and it really was doing it.
My current dryer has an annoying tone for everything. Change mode? Gotta beep as you click passed each one! Oh, you wanna adjust the time and heat? We'll make it chime with every increment instead of just when the button is pressed! Clothes done? Song of my people! Opened the door? Second verse!
Samsung? We got one used and it's great for the drying part, but when I went to research how to change the "melody", and I'm being generous here, to a chime or something else...nope. You get that, or silence. So we use silence and listen for the sound of it stopping. That song is terrible, and for there to be no options at all in a modern appliance...why was this a good idea on the drawing board?
Part of my wife's rationale for getting an Ecobubble was that it played the little song, and she loves it. (Also the whole low power and water usage thing)
We have a German brand washing machine that makes an ear piercing beep when the wash is done and repeats doing this every minute for 15 minutes straight. It is the most annoying and attention-seeking appliance in the house.
When it was time to replace the dryer, we intentionally got an Asian model with a lovely little tune that'll play exactly once. I'll never get tired of hearing that tune, because that god awful washing machine will always remind me of the alternative.
My washing machine has this repeating beep too. If you haven't done so, check the manual: on mine there's a setting to disable it.
Thank you so much for that suggestion!
It was right there in the manual, I really am an idiot sometimes. The beeping is softer now. It's still super shrill and repeating, but at least it doesn't give me an heart attack :)
I can't disable it entirely, there's too much washing going on to just ignore it completely. But this definitely helps!
I like that you don't say it annoys you but that it creeps you out. Like the washing machine singing at you is somehow a hint that Skynet is beginning to activate.
I consciously know it's not actually something to be scared of but for some fucking reason it just sounds like it's trying to tell me something bad is happening? Something to bring up with people who are trained in decoding this shit, probably.
“Ice cream van music, but it starts playing after you’ve found a dead body” type vibes lol
Of course a bionic baby kangaroo would like Skynet messing with us via home appliances.
I also appreciate a beep, but by te third note it becomes a tune and I want to throw it out the window.
Or the appliance that just has a flat monotone beep but it has to be like six times cl and you can't adjust that.
You should definitely search for your appliance beeping or notification noise adjust or turn off, cuz a lot of them have a factory setting or something where you can hold in the power button for 10 seconds and turn it off or change it or something like that.
My hot water boiler / warmer loudly plays Fur Elise for 10 or more seconds after it has brought a fresh tank to boil. Most of the time I don't care, but at 6:30 in the morning its loud I worry about waking people even with closed doors.
Hold the unlock button for for 3 seconds and it will change the song to 3 beeps. Do it again to mute it.
Thanks. I looked for that functionality in the manual when I got it, but I either missed it or its not there.
Shoot some Great Stuff into the speaker hole. (Not really, no, don't do this with something that heats up).
You could open it up, find the little speaker (probably a tiny little thing) and disconnect it or put some glue in it (like Goop).
I found instructions online on disabling the music circuit without completely disabling the speaker. I think I know just enough about electronics to really screw it up.
It's pretty great when it's done well though. But it's so rarely done well.
I've heard appliances make beeps or sing songs that clearly meant "job completed successfully", or "low battery", or "I need rescued before I can work again" without any need to consult a manual.
Any appliance that beeps when I press a button is annoying.
Edit: anything → any appliance
No electric keyboards for you I guess
Edited for clarity, haha
theres a 1986 stephen king movie i dont see mentioned enough called Maximum Overdrive, sounds like its up your alley.
I actually really like that the washing machine and my makita charger do those noises just because I've never heard appliances do musical stuff before and think it's really cool. BUUUUT:
I would totally hate it if anything.* aaaanything at allllll* in the kitchen were to make music the same way. Microwaves -- and the oven -- and the pressure cooker -- are already extremely loud and obnoxious as they are.
The washing machine and battery charger are somehow fine just because I don't associate them with the kitchen appliances I grew up being screamed-at by. The whole 'conditioned to be annoyed by X but when Y does it it's fine' thing
Our new zojirushi rice cooker plays songs. It's weird and makes me wonder why the kitchen sounds like the laundry room.
Agreed, about keeping more goofy songs out of the kitchen.
But I'll make an exception for my egg cooker.
My egg cooker beeps the equivalent beep to "I will fucking kill you all. Also these eggs are done. Seriously though, if I weren't just an egg cooker, I would stab you right in the eye."
I would trade that beep for pretty much any other sound, even a goofy song.
What in the world is an egg cooker? Mine is called a pot.
An egg cooker is a special appliance for people who feel like their pot doesn't take enough electricity, and doesn't cuss them out with a special beep when finished.
Thanks for letting me know to never buy Makita.
it doesn't do any noises unless you set it up that way intentionally.
I learned that it could do it. Then I set it up that way intentionally.
Every time our dryer is done my husband or I exclaim “I won!!”, it sounds like we just won a big prize. The microwave fucking SCREAMS at me, I don’t know what his deal is
I hope even more start doing that. Just for you.