If you’re like me, you start getting real annoyed, real fast at the system beep that insists on beeping far to often. This system beep emits not from your laptop speakers, but from that deep, dank recesses of ancient pc technology that is a little speaker designed only to beep annoyingly. Short of ripping it out, here’s how to disable it.
You can disable this by editing a file and entering two simple lines.
gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
And then add:
#silly speaker beep
blacklist pcspkr
Save your file and the speaker beep will be gone when you reboot.
If you don’t want to wait until a reboot, simply type:
sudo rmmod pcspkr
Technorati Tags: arsgeek, pc speaker mute, annoying sound destroying tip
Popularity: 25% [?]
August 24th, 2006 at 3:49 am
Or you can just oulle the *ucking speaker cable out from your mb
August 24th, 2006 at 6:53 am
August 24th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
you should keep in mind that this beep can be useful (essential) for some ultimate debugging but personnally, for everday use, i unplugged it.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:32 am
thank for posting this – *very* helpful. system beep was driving me nuts.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Glad you all are enjoying this article.
geek out
October 11th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Thank you! Every time my laptop system beep goes off I can hear it echo down the hall…
October 11th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Heh… no problem!
October 15th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
hello arsgeek! do you know how to solve this problem to? On my lap-top, the speakers don’t mute when I plug in my headphones. I get sound on both!
October 16th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Hi KJ,
I’m not sure off the top of my head. What make and model is your laptop?
January 11th, 2007 at 6:54 am
and if the module is compiled to kernel ?
January 17th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I’m having the same problem regarding my laptop speakers not muting when I plug in my headphones. Last week it was fine, but today it doesn’t work.
My laptop is a Fujitsu Lifebook (N6220) running XP.
Any help would be appreciated.
January 18th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Hey JHC, I’m not sure about XP machines – this tutorial was for linux.
A quick google seems to show that the system beep can be disabled on the BIOS:
Miscellaneous
Configurations
___
When selected, opens the Miscellaneous Configurations submenu to allow you to enable or dis-
able the power button, power button LED, the Wake Up On LAN feature, system beep, and
Instant MyMedia. (For systems with Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition installed, the
[Wake On USB Device] also appears here.
Check this pdf for more info:
http://www.fujitsu-pc-asia.com/uguide/bios/winter05/n6220_bios.pdf
January 20th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
JCH,
all you need to do is go to your Volume Control,
go to Switches and check “Headphone Jack Sense”
If that option is not available in your Switches,
go to Edit -> Preferences
to make it available
January 27th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Great tip This beep was so annoying. Thank you.
March 16th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Thanks ! A very nice addition to HowToGeek article !
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/disable-the-system-beep-on-ubuntu-edgy/
March 30th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
When I got my Dell XPS1710 with XP preinstalled it would beep like it was trying to perform some kind of sonic cleaning and there was No Way to Turn It Off. It would ignore everything. Finally I got it to shut up by disabling the (hidden) beep device.
Now I’ve installed Ubuntu on it and… GAH! I’m sorry, but what is the #¤% point of waking everyone within a 2 mile radius every time I press tab and there’s no completion? WTF?!
So thank you again for massively improving my life by giving me the knowledge to undo the unfathombly retarded default setting.
June 11th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Disable the annoying beep or bell on tab-completion, it’s easy:
Open up the file: /etc/inputrc
uncomment the following line or just place it in the file
set bell-style none
It’s that simple and now all users don’t have to hear the annoying beep anymore
It is much simpler than buggering about with modules and drivers.
(this works on Feisty too)
June 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
harry3~/downloads>cat ./nobeepshutdown.sh
#!/bin/bash
#to be run as root
#switch off system speaker and shutdown(halt) after $1 minutes (integer)
sudo rmmod pcspkr
sudo shutdown -h +${1:-20}
September 5th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Thanks for this. I hate that damn beep. Firefox was my last holdout.
September 10th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! aocgogocnsvh
September 30th, 2007 at 2:32 am
if in case we want to turn on how to do it?
October 4th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Thank you, you saved my day(s)
October 25th, 2007 at 9:00 am
to turn the beep back on:
remove “blacklist pcspkr” from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
or modprobe pcspkr
October 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
just what I needed, thanks!
October 31st, 2007 at 7:41 am
Yes, man. Thanks a lot for this hint. I’m egg-zactly the kind that gets “really tired, really fast”, of that annoying stupid beep.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Here’s another way to disable the annoying beep…
December 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Here’s another way to disable the annoying beep: http://alain.giantdorks.org/quick-tip-turn-off-the-annoying-system-beep-in-ubuntu/
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I LOVE you!!
Thank you so much for the instructions, learned something valuable and got rid of that god forsaken beep.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Wow. I er. . . love you too.
Glad I could help. This is by far one of the more followed articles on the site.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Thanks, that was VERY annoying when doing searching a page in Iceweasel.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
WooHoo! Having come over to Ubuntu from Gentoo, it was extremely annoying having that beep, especially because I use tab-completion all the time, and it would beep whenever there was more than one option. Thanks a ton!
February 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Thanks, this is a lifesaver during classes! It’s rather embarrassing to have your system start beeping loudly when you are supposed to be paying attention to a lecture.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:34 am
This was my #1 annoyance – thanks a ton!
March 30th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
To turn off the annoying System Beep in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10.
Click APPLICATIONS > PREFERENCES > SOUND > SYSTEM BEEP. then uncheck ENABLE SYSTEM BEEP.
April 27th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Thanks, Denis! That’s a much nicer solution to the problem. Same instructions go for Ubuntu 8.04 as well.
July 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Wow. You’d think no operating system other than Linux ever gave you that “annoying system beep”.
Psst…kid…it’s a PC thing.
It’s perfectly okay to be ignorant of things like economics and history, but if you’re going to look this clueless about computers, you might want to write for the New York Times instead.
July 7th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I support Linux 100% but I feel that people should make an objective decision for themselves after reading The Truth about Linux.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
you can also disable it from within Xwindows using “xset b off” this prevents X applications from beeping.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
That’s fabulous. I googled for this solution a few years ago and couldn’t find it, so I ended up patching and recompiling my kernel to remove the beep. Patching was clearly the long way around the problem.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I hardly ever hear that beep! last time I heard it was when I shorted my RAM and the BIOS made the beep sound.
You shouldn’t disable it, I hardly hear it, its main function is to alert you of critical problems.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Thanks for the info. I haven’t tried the blacklisting yet (not rebooted yet), but the “on-demand” method works (Ubuntu 8.04).
The beep WAS driving me crazy, especially in Vimperator, where is always beeped when it couldn’t match a regex I looked for with /.
October 17th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Hello. Thank you so much for bring this kind of useful (beep was about of blow my head off!!!)
October 26th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Thank you so much. I have been running the Ibex since alpha. Have never had this problem before, but this fixed it nicely.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Thanks! That really really annoying
November 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Thank you
Great tips. After I just installed Debian…
November 25th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Thanks for this tip. I just did a clean install of Ubuntu 8.10 on my laptop and it started beeping again, very loudly, which is annoying in meetings.
Previously in some version of Ubuntu there was a configuration screen where you could turn off the beep and enable flashing of the window instead. I wish I could find that again, but have wasted too much time on a really stupid problem. If anyone knows how to turn on the flashing, please let me know.
Thanks again!
November 28th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Thank you! Firefox can no longer use the system beep every time a ctrl + f search yields no results, and that is VERY good news!
December 15th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Thank you so much. Every time I change my GDM login screen, it would beep even when I unchecked it in my sound preferences. This works in Hardy if anyone is wondering.
December 18th, 2008 at 3:10 am
I’m so thankful to have found how to disable this — thank you for your article. I can’t tell you how many times that damn thing just makes me want to throw my computer across the room — it’s like it just nags you with that sound every time you do something just slightly imperfect. This tutorial is like a nice big fat roll of duct tape! Thanks!
December 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
thanks. its really works. good job keep it up.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
my speaker just scared the crap out of me on a new-ish sidux install.. the damn baby is sleeping and BEEEP.. this is where the google took me so here I am..
awesome ArsGeek….thanks for this.. your article cracked me up – “deep, dank recesses” f*ckin A. love it.
geek out yourself,
rel
January 16th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
This works in Ubuntu 8.10! I was so annoyed by the fact that they removed the option from the sound panel, and I just cant have a beeping computer from an accidental backspace on an empty document.
Thank You!
- Jesse Zylstra
http://www.zylstrablog.co.nr
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
thanks!!! this annoying beep was driving crazy!
February 4th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
I long for the day when the speaker does not exist. It is too sharp a sound so I have to disable it, though often it is useful.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:48 am
What a relive, thank you very much for the post I could not hear music without worring about that annoying sound.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
can i quote your blog post? and i will surely mentioned that it’s quoted from this post? thank you very much
March 14th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Thanks a lot!
March 27th, 2009 at 1:59 am
thank you.
OMFG. That beep would scare the shit out of me, when I would make a mistake or backspace when their was no data in a html form. FUCK. Thank you
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 am
This works for my IBM laptop too running Ubuntu. On this the system beep DOES come out of normal speakers (and my out of my earphones when they are plugged in, and this nigh on deafens me!)
So anymay, I rmmod’d the pcspkr and now I no longer hear the system beep in my earphones or anywhere.
Thanks for the tip
(I’ve blacklisted it now too!)
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Thanks man… mine was going off every time I shut down… but no more!
May 12th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Thanks a ton…!
The beep was driving me crazy…!
Wasn’t able to auto-complete with my fav tabs..
Bravo..!
May 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
You can change on /etc/inputrc
set bell-style none (without #)
May 25th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Thanks! You are my hero!
May 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
You rock. Thank you.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
mmmmmmmm quiet paradise.
Thank You!
June 16th, 2009 at 4:56 am
Oi Oi!
Thanks a lot! But i got a problem here… I just reinstalled ubuntu(jaunty) and i had the beep disabled before( i don’t know the way, but it was with the blacklist).
However, wehenever i try to add and save something in the blacklist it says that i’m not allowed to change something! Wich is a bugger! I’m the only user, and i haven’t changed any securitysettings!
So why can’t i save it?
Other methods where i have to change something in the console doesn’t seem to work either…
I’d be glad if someone could provide help!
okay
June 20th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
@Okay:
try editing the file as root:
sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
or
gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
@arsgeek:
nice tip, thx
July 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Thanx a lot 4 tha tip!!!
September 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Superb, this was really helpful. BTW, urs is top goog result man. congrats.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:54 am
edit /etc/inputrc
———————
set bell-style none
———————
enjoy !
Lin u X u niL
October 15th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Yeah!!!!!
thx a lot!!!
I was on the way to go crazy!
October 19th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Wow thanks. The beep just went off a million times during my history lecture and I immediately came here to find out how to turn it off. Thanks!
October 25th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Thanks rmmod worked…
November 20th, 2009 at 1:51 am
You are the best
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:23 am
What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:38 pm
This solution doesn’t seem to work in Debian Lenny. I’ve found however that if you blacklist a module called snd_pcsp it has the same effect. Just use ‘snd_pcsp’ instead of ‘pcspkr’. It works for me, but I’m not a Linux guru, so use my solution at your own risk!
February 8th, 2010 at 2:20 am
I love you!
A big thank from my neighbours too!
March 6th, 2010 at 11:57 am
You saved my, and my colleauges sanity! Thanks a Lot!
March 15th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I wish I would have known this before I just ripped the speaker out lol. That sound was starting to get really annoying. Oh well, at least it’s gone now.
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:49 am
Finally! Never failed to make me jump
Thank you…
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:14 am
Thank you, I’ve turned it off finally cause it was very annoying. Now my ubuntu works better.
July 12th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
“And there is also an annoying beep sound on Vista! I really hate new versions, either they are not user friendly and they have somethings that are really frustrating. They should know that they should not fix it if ain’t broken!
“
September 28th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Simple yet powerful! Thanks for sharing this tip
October 4th, 2010 at 7:55 am
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November 15th, 2010 at 4:53 am
Thanks, to be frank I don’t really understand why my notebook beeps is it due to overheating or what but it really drives me crazy.
January 8th, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Or you can just oulle the *ucking speaker cable out from your mb
January 8th, 2011 at 5:45 pm
I’m so thankful to have found how to disable this — thank you for your article. I can’t tell you how many times that damn thing just makes me want to throw my computer across the room — it’s like it just nags you with that sound every time you do something just slightly imperfect. This tutorial is like a nice big fat roll of duct tape! Thanks!
January 8th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
When I got my Dell XPS1710 with XP preinstalled it would beep like it was trying to perform some kind of sonic cleaning and there was No Way to Turn It Off. It would ignore everything. Finally I got it to shut up by disabling the (hidden) beep device.
January 21st, 2011 at 5:31 am
Thanks for recommending these useful steps to us. Well, it is very easy to disable the annoying beep or bell on tab-completion.
March 5th, 2011 at 10:32 am
you should keep in mind that this beep can be useful (essential) for some ultimate debugging but personnally, for everday use, i unplugged it.
March 12th, 2011 at 7:03 am
Solution you have provided regarding the problem is quite impressive and it would be really works out for me..
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
I prefer to unplug… Like the other poster said it can be essential when performing other tasks.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Just unplug the internal speaker in the chasis and problem solved.
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June 9th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Thanks for sharing this. But disabling system beep is not always good. We need to be alarmed when system is getting errors.
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I had never see a blog better than this one.
Thank you for your post.
September 29th, 2011 at 5:12 am
Still useful after all these years
Thanks for saving my sanity (and that of my office-mates)!
Chris.
October 18th, 2011 at 8:38 am
I still don’t know how to operate . someone help me!!!
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December 8th, 2011 at 9:06 am
This system beep emits not from your laptop speakers, but from that deep, dank recesses of ancient pc technology that is a little speaker designed only to beep annoyingly. Short of ripping it out, here’s how to disable it.
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January 6th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
You just saved my ears, I got really too efficient headphone and everytime I rebooted my laptop I was getting literally attacked by this >< beep.
Thanks you so much!
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:00 am
I’m very thankful to have read this post, now I know what to do.
February 3rd, 2012 at 10:03 am
Thanks
February 12th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I tried the blacklist pcspkr, it did not work becauase that module is not even loaded on my laptop. The annoying beep remained. I tried a few other things also with no success.
On 2012-02-12 with the latest Linux Mint Debian Edition LMDE this is the only thing that I found to work to get the pc speaker from beeping. Quoting from user Figjam above,
“Open up the file: /etc/inputrc
uncomment the following line or just place it in the file
set bell-style none
It’s that simple and now all users don’t have to hear the annoying beep anymore
It is much simpler than buggering about with modules and drivers.”
Thanks Figjam! This inputrc modification worked perfectly. No more loud annoying BEEP on my system!
February 12th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Linux Mint Debian Edition 64-bit gnome desktop on 2012-02-12 fully updated system. Silencing the noisy BEEP on my laptop….
In addition to Figjam’s solution I also had to mute the beep in the gnome desktop. Like so:
Control Center – Hardware (section) – Sound (icon)
…This brings up the mixer which includes volume controls and some other items for audio input and output..
In the Sound mixer “Playback” tab, select “Preferences” and add in the “Beep” device. Then check the little speaker on the bottom of the “Beep” slider to mute the Beep. Now you will no longer have the annoying beep as you use the desktop (Gnome). This also removes the beep from the Gnome Greeter (the login screen).
If you follow Figjams post and my earlier post (same info) you will prevent beeping when you run a full screen terminal session (such as when you use Ctrl-Alt-F1), which I occasionally do. That solution does not silent the beep while you are running the Gnome desktop.
That sums it up for raw terminal and also for gnome desktop. Again this is with respect to silencing the noisy BEEP in Linux Mint Debian Edition 64-bit.
February 28th, 2012 at 3:46 am
More than 5 years after it was written, this article is still saving laptops from being thrown against the wall. Thank you.
April 14th, 2012 at 2:03 am
This is so irritating Good that I’ve found the answer thanks to the author.