Windows XP Startup Sound

It's not the hard drive, nor the software, you have a resonance in your speaker system; my best guess.

Second best guess is sound card / connection issue / speaker cone fault.

Test: try a new, wholly separate, known to be good sound system, for comparison.

Chumly- I dunno. I don't appear to have any problems with any music that I play on the computer, and I often play XM radio through the speakers.

You'll know if you try a new, wholly separate, known to be good sound system, for comparison. Headphones might work too.

Good idea! Thanks. But I may blast my ears off with headphones, if I don't remember to lower the sound way down.

Just switch off the Windows Startup sound.
Or change it to something you actually like.

Start - Settings - Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices.
Click the Sounds tab and then scroll down the list until you see Start Windows. Highlight it and then go to the list of sounds underneath the scrolly box and pick a sound you do like or just select 'none' from the top of the list.
Or you can make it use any sound you like as long as it's in .wav format.
Just click on the Browse button and look for your sound.

I once had the computer play a quote from Marvin The Paranoid Android when it started up "Oh no. Not again."


Now I don't like it to make any noises unless I explicitly tell it to.
Can't stand websites that start playing bloody noises just because I've clicked on them.

Heliotrope- I know what you mean. Whan I had my first computer, I went hog wild, and assigned a sound to just about EVERYTHING. It bugged the hell out of me. Major league annoying. I took most of it off.

Problem is, I LIKE the Windows opening sound. But you are right. I really should look for something else.

You do ?!!!
Wow.
Then you're the first person I've met who doesn't find it really annoying.

Actually you know what you could do ?

Get yourself an audio editor.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and download Audacity.
It's free, GNU and very good.
Or use whatever you're used to.

Put the Start Windows sound into it and adjust the volume down by as much as you want and then save it back where it was as a different filename StartWin-Phoenix.wav for example.
Then go into the sound manager thingy again and change the startup sound to your modified one.
It'll be quieter and you'll not have to wear earplugs as well as your headphones.

Heliotrope- I have a new hard drive, so I am starting out relatively clean. Righ now, I have used 15.4 G space. Once I start loading pictures, I know that the number will go a bit higher, but a never used the majority of my hard drive.

Don't download songs. I have XM radio on my computer, and more music CDs (and records) than I will ever need. I get my films from Blockbuster Online. I did that out of necessity, as we have a collection of thousands of both VHS and DVD tapes, and I was sick and tired of buying new cabinets for our ever expanding collection!

Ah. I didn't realise that precluded making the Windows startup sound a bit quieter for your convenience.

Yeah, between the hi-fi and the HD TV, I sometimes really appreciate peace and quiet!

Funny- I went to the "Sounds and Audio devices" pane. When I played the "Windows Startup" from there, the sound was perfectly fine.