Bug 183922

Version:            (using KDE 4.1.3)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    SuSE RPMs

For several weeks I have been worried my motherboard was about to fail.  At apparently random intervals the computer "beeped" using the tinny, on-board piezo speaker, that is never used for anything.

Today, I finally realised that the beep happens when I hold the shift key down for 5 seconds.

There's a popup that explains accessibility options after 8 seconds, but the beep was causing me to lift my finger to see what the noise was.  So I never got to see the popup.

Apart from the mobo soundcard (whose outputs are unconnected) I have a second soundcard to which music is routed (in the KDE control panel) and which is connected to an amp and headphones.  Accessibility and system notifications go to the mobo.

As far as I know, I have never heard this same beep (the tinny piezoelectric beep) for any other notification (generally, as far as I can remember, the computer seems pretty much silent - I assume because the mobo sound outputs are not connected to a speaker).

As far as I can remember, I first noticed the beep when upgrading to OpenSuse 11.1.  With 11.0 I didn't have this beep.  Since I was using various "unstable" repositories at the time I cannot reliably report on the KDE version that I was using then.

I realise this is rather vague, but my hope is that someone else can confirm that the "shift key down 5 secs beep" is routed in an unusual way.

And even if that is not the case, why can't the popup occur with the beep?

I don't think I can explain just how frustrating it has been worrying that my computer (critical for my work) is about to fail.  I've been reading through system logs, checking my UPS, etc etc.

(I have now disabled everything via the 8 second popup).