Siren Noises From Your Mac
Many people crank their iTunes or other music players while using their Mac computers, but when a siren starts blaring, that's typically a less-than-welcome sound. In the best-case scenario, the siren sound is simply the result of a setting you need to alter. Worst case, you'll need to perform some upgrades or repairs to eliminate the sound.
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Activity Monitor
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Your first action with any Mac is to check the Activity Monitor, where you'll find a view of all programs running on your computer. This can give you an indication of where the sound may originate -- whether it's an errant application, your Internet browser or something else. To open Activity Monitor, click the "Applications" tab and select "Utilities," then "Activity Monitor." Once it's open, you can check how much of your central processing unit (CPU) resources various programs are using. If you have all programs closed, yet still see a program taking up space, force close it by pressing and holding the Ctrl key and clicking the application's icon in either the "Dock" or "Applications" folder.
Sound Effects
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Your Mac has sound effects that play when you do something in error or attempt an action not possible on your computer. Click the Apple menu in the top left corner of your computer screen, then select "System Preferences" and "Sound" from the Hardware menu. In the Sound menu, see if the "Play user interface sound effects" box is checked; if so, this causes a sound to play when you perform certain tasks. You can also see which alert sound is set for your computer. To do this, click the title for each alert sound, which helps you check whether it's the siren sound you want to remove. As a general test, click to check the "Mute" box near "Output volume" to mute the sounds on your computer, then see whether you're still hearing a siren noise while performing tasks. If so, the sound may be coming from some other hardware component, in which case a hardware test may be in order.
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Hardware Test
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In some cases, malfunctioning RAM or other hardware may cause a siren noise. Before you take your computer to the repair shop, however, you can perform a test using Apple Hardware Test. To do this, turn your computer off, then turn it back on. When you see the grey screen, press and hold the "D" key; this opens the test. In the Hardware Test window, click the "Perform extended testing" box, then click the "Test" button. Your results will display in the bottom right corner of your screen.
Firefox
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If you use Firefox as your Internet browser, you may have heard reports of an unwanted siren noise issuing from computers running this application. In some cases, users have disabled the noise by uninstalling a Firefox application called CoolPreviews, which allows you to preview links and images. To do this, click
"Tools > Add-ons > Extensions" to access the CoolPreviews add-on. Click the "Uninstall" button that appears, then follow the prompts.
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