Random Alert Sound on 2012 iMac OSX 10.8.5?

Hi, I recently erased and restored my iMac (late 2012, 27") and am currently running OSX 10.8.5. At incredibly random times (every few minutes), my iMac will make an alert sound that is sort of like a "ker-plunk" noise. It is somewhat similar to the skype message notification sound, but it's definitely not from skype, and it's not exactly that same sound.
I can't figure out where it's coming from, as I'm not alerted anywhere else on the Mac. I don't have mail set up on the mac so it's not an alert from that.
I'm at a loss, and this is super annoying.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi,
The System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects tab can list all the System Sounds and any sounds you have in your User's Sound Folder.
As you can see those in your Users Folder (~/Library/Sounds) are listed as Custom where as the System Sounds are listed and Built-in.
I have a door opening and a door closing sound that I think came from the AIM for Mac applications that sound a bit ker-plunky. (listed as Buddy On and Buddy Off).
If the Sound is not from these sources then I will describe and example method that you can apply to other apps (most likely the ones that are open)
Go to the Applications folder in the Finder.
Highlight Messages.
Right Click and select "Show Package Contents"
Open the Contents folder that then appears in the window.
Open the Resources Folder.
At this point I have the Finder's View Menu > Show View Options showing the Kind column
I click the Kind header and the .aiff files that the app uses are moved to the top of the list.
I have also used the Finder's View Menu to Customise the Toolbar and have the Quick Look button showing
Highlight a sound and use the Quick Look button.
It opens a Slide but also plays the sound without adding and using iTunes to play them
(Alternatively you can right click and Open With and use Quicktime).
7:31 pm Friday; October 4, 2013
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Random alert sound

Hi there,
I have had a macbook since last June and I recently (about a month ago) started to get this weird alert sound that pops up every now and then, without being related to anything apparent because sometimes I am not using the computer and it starts anyway. I tried shutting down the alerts in the system preferences but it doesn't work. I also shut down all the sound from all the application that I use (ICal, Messenger, Skype, etc.) but it still pops. Sometimes it can do it 3-4 times in a 2-minute frame and other times I can go a few hours without hearing it.
I should add that it is really an alert sound because I tried changing the sound in the preferences for another one and it's the new one that pops out now...
I would greatly appreciate if someone could give me a heads up as of what is going on and, hopefully a fix, because it's driving me crazy.
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If it only occurs very occasionally, I really wouldn't worry about it. Perhaps you can take a look at Console and see if there's anything in the system log at the time it happens. As far as I know, it's not a known problem.

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Be sure to try shutting down (powering off) the iMac, instead of just doing a restart.
Also, some sound settings are stored in PRAM, so try resetting PRAM if the problem recurs.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
As a test to narrow down the cause, create a new admin user account in System Preferences Accounts pane.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8235.html
Log out and log in to the new account. Does the problem recur in the new account? If not, the cause is likely to be in your normal user account. If the problem does recur even in the new account, then the cause is likely to be related to the overall system (OS), or possibly hardware (but it would be very unusual if random alert sounds was hardware-related).

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Maybe I should try to use line-in and forgo USB altogether then. I think I'd need a preamp and some sort of converter for that since the Mac Mini lacks a powered mic jack. I'm only a newbie musician so I've never set up such a system but it might be a better solution in the long run.
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I recently Upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.6 and iTunes 6.04. However this problem did not surface until a couple of days later.
When I go through System Preferences and select the option of playing iTunes through iMic USB Audio System, the system alert sound effect begins playing randomly through my Mac desktop external speakers a couple of times a minute.
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Hi Rusty,
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Thing is I don't think I've ever heard this before.. Or maybe I haven't noticed?
Can you hear a quick 'click' power on fan sound when you first power up the late 2012 iMac? It goes away immediately.. It's only on power up.
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HUMM ... $MS$ ... HUMM Must have been put in the code by a 'no email' developer
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I was wondering if there was any way that you can install alert sounds like in windows where whenever you plug in or take out a USB device it will play that alert sound?

The answer is: No, at least not easily.
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That being said, if you're still looking to do this, you can start here:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=changeOS+X+alertsounds&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[Guide] Install and run Windows 7/8 from an external drive without using bootcamp (works for late 2012 iMacs with 3TB drive)

This is a copy of a post from my blog, you can also Read it on my blog...
Introduction
After I received my new iMac with a 3 TB Fusion Drive, I was disappointed when I realized that Bootcamp was not running on this model and prevented me from installing Windows on it. I wanted to take advantage of the powerful iMac hardware to play games but I couldn't.
There are a few ways of working around this limitation, but I found most of them quite complex and most of the time they required formatting the internal hard drive or repartitioning it and go for a brand new installation of Mac OS X. I was not comfortable with that.
But there is another way, and that is to install Windows on an external hard drive, using either USB or Thunderbolt. Personally I used a Lacie Rugged 1 TB drive that has both USB3 and Thunderbolt connectors. Both work very well.
This guide may interest you if:
You have an internal hard drive of more than 2TB and you can't run bootcamp at all (like late 2012 iMacs with a 3TB drive)
You have limited space or you don't want to dedicate disk space on your internal hard disk drive to a Windows installation
What this guide will make you do:
It will make you erase all your data from your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install Windows on your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install bootcamp drivers
What this will not make you do:
It will not make you modify anything on your internal Mac hard drive
It will not make you use or install the bootcamp assistant
It will not activate the Preference Pane for the default boot drive. You have to boot by pressing the ALT key to manually select your boot drive each tome you want to boot Windows.
What you'll need
An external hard drive with a USB3 and/or Thunderbolt connector. This drive will be formatted so ensure you saved your files before going further. You can use either an SSD drive or a classic hard drive.
A Windows 7 or 8 install DVD or ISO (check whether to install 32 or 64 bits versions based on your Bootcamp drivers) and the corresponding Windows serial number.
One of the following:
Mac OS X with a Windows 7 or 8 Virtual Machine (use VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for example. Note: VMWare Fusion seems to have some issues with Thunderbolt and USB3. Plug your drive to a USB2 enclosure or hub to work around this -it worked for me-, or use another VM software) → Read the important note below
A PC running Windows 7 or 8 → Read the important note below
Windows AIK (free) running on your Virtual Machine or on your PC, or just the imagex.exe file (the rest of the Windows AIK package is not needed)
Download imagex.exe
Download Windows AIK (this download and installation is not required if you have already downloaded imagex.exe)
Bootcamp drivers for your Mac. You can get these either by running bootcamp from your Mac (Applications > Utilities > Bootcamp) or, if like me you have a 3TB drive and can't run bootcamp at all, use the direct download links here.
A USB stick to store your bootcamp drivers
IMPORTANT: If your Mac has a 64 bits processor, your Windows Virtual Machine on OSX, your Windows installation on your PC and your Windows DVD/ISO must also be in 64 bits!
Step by Step guide
Step 1: Get the install.wim file
If you have a Windows ISO file:
Mount the ISO
If you're on OS X: double click on the ISO file
If you're on on Windows 7: Use a software like Virtual Clone Drive (free)
If you're on Windows 8: double click on the ISO file
Open the mounted drive, then go to the "sources" folder and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
If you have a Windows DVD: open the "sources" folder on the DVD and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
IMPORTANT: If instead of a "install.wim" file, you have "install.esd", you can not continue this step by step guide. And an ESD file can not be converted into a WIM file. So you must get a version of the Windows installation DVD/ISO that has an install.wim file.
Step 2: Clean, partition and format your external hard drive
On your Windows installation or virtual machine, plug in your external hard drive (can be plugged using USB2, USB3 or Thunderbolt at this stage)
Open the command prompt in administrator mode (cmd.exe). To run it in administrator mode, right click on cmd.exe > Run as admin.
Type the following and hit enter to open the disk partitioner utility:
diskpartType the following and hit enter to list your drives:
list disk
This will display a list of disks mounted on your computer or virtual machine. Make sure your drive is listed here before you continue.Identify the disk ID of your external hard drive. Replace # by your real external disk ID in the command below:
select disk #Clean all partitions by typing the following (warning: this will erase all data from your external drive!):
clean
Create the boot parition by typing the following followed by the enter key:
create partition primary size=350
This will create a 350MB partition on your external driveFormat the partition in FAT32 by typing the following:
format fs=fat32 quick
Set this partition to active by typing:
active
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter B in our example. If B is already used on your PC, replace B by any other available letter:
assign letter=b
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Create the Windows installation partition using all the remaining space available on the external drive by typing the following:
create partition primary
Format the new partition in NTFS:
format fs=ntfs quick
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter O in our example. If O is already used on your PC, replace O by any other available letter:
assign letter=o
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Exit the disk partitioner utility by typing:
exit
Step 3: Deploy the Windows installation image
Still using the command prompt in admin mode (you didn't close it, did you? ), locate the imagex.exe file mentioned in the "What you'll need" section and access its folder. In our example, we have put this file in C:\imagex\imagex.exe
Type the following and hit enter (remember to replace o: with the letter you have chosen in the previous step):
imagex.exe /apply C:\wim\install.wim 1 o:
This will take some time. The Windows installation image is being deployed to your external driveOnce done, type the following to create the boot section (remember to replace o: and b: with the letters you've chosen in the previous step):
o:\windows\system32\bcdboot o:\windows /f ALL /s b:
If you get an error message saying that you can't run this program on your PC, then most probably you are running on a 32 bits installation of windows and you're trying to deploy a 64 bits install. This means you did not read the important notes in the beginning of this guide
If you get an error message on the options that can be used with the BCDBOOT command, then it's because you're installing Windows 7, and the /f option is not supported. If that is the case, remove /f ALL from the command and retry.
Step 4: Boot from your external drive and install Windows
Plug in your external drive:
If you've done all the previous steps from a Windows PC, unplug your external drive from your PC and plug it to your Mac, either on a USB3 or a Thunderbolt port.
If you've done all the previous steps from your Mac using a Virtual Machine, ensure the external drive is plugged in to a USB3 or Thunderbolt port. Using USB2 should also work but you'll get very poor performance so I don't recommend doing that.
Reboot your Mac and once the bootup sound is over, immediately press the ALT (option) key and release it only when the boot drives selection screen appears. If you did not get the boot drives selection screen, reboot and try again. The timing to press the ALT (option) key is quite short. It must not be too early or too late.
On the boot selection screen, choose "Windows" using the arrow keys on your keyboard, then press enter.
The Windows installation starts. Follow the on-screen instructions as normal. The installation program will restart your computer one or 2 times. Don't forget to press ALT (option) right after the bootup sound, and boot on Windows again each time to continue the installation.
Step 5: Install bootcamp drivers
Once the Windows installation is complete, plug in the USB stick where you stored the bootcamp drivers (see "what you'll need" section), open it and right click on "setup.exe" and select "Run as admin". Follow the on-screen instructions.If you have an error saying that you can't run this program on this PC, obviously you have installed a 32 bits version of Windows and the bootcamp drivers for your Mac are made for a 64 bits version. You have to restart the whole guide and make sure to get a 64 bits version of Windows this time!
Once the bootcamp drivers are all installed, reboot and press ALT (option) after the bootup sound to boot on Windows again. And Voilà, you have Windows installed on your USB3/Thunderbolt drive running on your Mac.
Now each time you want to boot on Windows, press and hold the ALT (option) key after the startup sound and select "Windows", then press Enter.

Hi i'm trying to follow your guide, I installed windows 8 on bootcamp to do it planning to remove it after the operation is done, but i get stuck at part 3: every command i give to imagex i get a pop-up ftom windws asking how do I want to open this kind of file install.wim and imagex does nothing, what do i have to do to stop those pop-ups?

No MPEG1 sound on my iMac G5

Help. For some reason my old clips that use MPEG1 Muxed (sound) now have NO sound. I have isolated it to this modem type as all other file formats, including windows formats play okay in QT.
Also, MS Word no longer beeps or makes other prompting type sounds.
Also, MovieMagic Screenwriter no longer produces any sound when saving, detecting spelling errors, etc.
which I mainly use for streaming radio staions, as most only support Realmedia or Windows streaming. Video is okay, just no sound. This also includes no sound when watching or listening to anything from Youtube.
I was running 10.4.8 from the software update and everything was fine. I downloaded Audacity this morning, opened it, did nothing with it and then closed it. Possibly the problems started at that point but I'm not sure. I have since downloaded and re-installed 10.4.8 using the combo 10.4.8 version according to the apple guidlelines, but there is no change.
Everything was working fine, and always has, now I suddenly have all of these problems with sound. Never had this before ever. Also downloaded the latest version of QT pro again, but no difference detected.
iTtunes works okay and so do all of the OSX alert sounds as well as my clock. Later QT movies that use the newer codecs also work okay.
Please, can anyone help? The problem is on my iMac G5, 20 in, 2GHz.
Thankyou.

Audacity is a program that has been known to change sound MIDI prefs and if it does that, the sounds on your Mac can disappear.
To fix it, simply open up Garage Band and play a sample loop. This will reset the prefs to the defaults and if that was the problem, your sound will return.
Apple has a KB article about it HERE.

IMac OSX 10.5.8 Strange Boot Behavior

Hello All,
I've got an Issue with my 2007 Imac. I've been struggling with it for almost the entire day and night, and after trying every trick I've found online, I can't get anywhere. Incoming Wall-O-Text, apologies, but I want to be as detailed as I can.
So what happened before it all went down was... I was poking around trying to free up disk space, going through every major directory and analyzing its size. I poked around in a lot of hidden and system files, but I was very careful not to modify or delete any of these. The only files I deleted were in the following directories:
Note: I did not delete entire directory, just specific files I've named
/Applications/World of Warcraft/...
     I deleted some old patch files and installer files
/Users/my_username/Movies...
     I deleted some old video files
/Private/Var/Folders/Dy/Dy3Jj8iy2eE8iGh3ej/Tmp...
     There were two large Screenflow files here, I deleted them. Also deleted a handful of other small files. These small, obscurely named files are the only ones I'm worried I shouldn't have deleted. Might have been careless, but they were in a temp directory right?
Only other thing I did was give myself R/W permissions to some folders that were locked to me, for the purpose of checking their size. Some of these included the Spotlight directory and other system folders. But once again, no modifications done here except the permissions.
Shortly after strange things began happening. My Google Chrome Window turned to a white screen. I could press back, forward, refresh, but nothing appeared in the window. I closed Chrome. I started Itunes and it failed to open. I tried to open it again, same result: crashed, critical error, etc. I didn't pay much attention to the error message unfortunately. I decided to do a quick reboot...well my OS never booted back up.
It got stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo with the little circle underneath it, thinking. And it just sits there, for about two minutes... and then screen flashes black and it restarts itself. Apple chord sound plays, and back to the grey screen with Apple logo and circle. For two minutes, then black again, Apple chord, etc. etc. etc.
The process continues to repeat by itself. I let the process run for almost an hour before I gave up on it fixing itself.
System Specs:
2007 Imac, OSX 10.5.8, 20inch, 2.4ghz core 2 duo, 1gb ram, 250gb hd
I have the Install DVD and system reads it fine.
Since then I've been scouring these forums and others, trying most solutions I've found, such as:
Holding 'D' for hardware check (comes back clean)
Running Disk Utility from boot DVD (Verify Permissions, Repair Permissions, Verify Disk, and Repair Disk: ALL come back clean)
Resetting PRAM (held for 4 dings)
Resetting the SMC
Verbose Mode (It loads and I get to see some text, but still hangs for two minutes and restarts)
Safe Mode will NOT work, system hangs at same spot like always then restarts
Single User Mode (Loads the text like Verbose. I ran fsck -fy a few times, didn't change anything. I'd like to explore more commands in this mode)
DiskWarrior (First time through, graph produced 34% errors or whatever. I did a repair and rebuild. It executed fine. I Graphed a second time, it came up with less than 1% errors. Repaired and Rebuilt again successfully. I even used the 'Scavenge' mode. After all of this, boot still hangs and restarts)
Drive Genius (I executed everything under the 'Repair' tool. Twice. Came back clean both times)
Tried booting with various configurations of USB devices plugged-in / not plugged in
After all this, The machine behaves exactly like it did when the problem first happened, no change.
Things I haven't tried:
Target disk mode with another Mac (Don't have access to one unless I go way out of my way)
Reset NVRAM? (Can't get it to work, it just hangs like normal)
Some advanced Scripting in Single User Mode (Since this mode seems to work for me, maybe I can get something working here)Saw on some other site "try booting with "-x -f -v" Not sure what these do or how to do them
I don't have a backup even remotely recent, shame on me.
The strange thing that seperates my case from most others I've seen, is that I'm not having any errors in my disk checks and cleanups. And my DVD reads just fine. Most people are coming with errors after installing updates, or they can't boot from DVD, or getting "unrecoverable disk" errors.
For me, everything supposedly is in working order, but obiously it isn't. I'm still failing to see the culprit here.
One interesting thing is that in both Single User Mode and Verbose Mode, the last lines I see before It hangs are
AppleYukon2: Marvel Yukon Gigabit Adapter 88E8055 Singleport Copper SA
AppleYukon2: RxRingSize <= 1024, TxRingSize 256, RX_MAX_LE 1024, TX_MAX_LE 768, ST_MAX_LE 3328
I've seen other threads where people have almost these exact lines in their startup before stalling. Someone mentioned the hang could have something to do with these lines...
OR
whatever lines come immediately after these.
OR
It could be something completely unrelated. Who knows.
Thats all I can think of right now, I'm exhausted. I'd appreciate any and all help. I can't afford to lose the data on this machine
Look forward to hearing from y'all
Thanks guys

duringnieux pierre wrote:
if you got an external drive , try install a system on it then boot from it ( in that way your internal drive act as an external drive , then you can backup your files )
Firstly IF I have an un-bootable install, why would it suddenly become bootable if I used it externally rather than internally?
Anyways I tried to Create Image from my Macintosh HD and save it to external, and got this error:
"Unable to Create: input/output error"
This happened twice. I am about to use a different external HD, one which also has more space.
And Klaus,
I did read through the links you supplied. In the first link there is a giant list of all the files the archive function backs up. It backs up a lot, but not quite everything. If it backed up everything, they could just say "everything".
The directory I'm concerned with is the /Applications one. It seems the only things backed up in this directory are specific Apple apps, for exapmple:
/Applications/Chess.app
/Applications/Clock.app
/Applications/DVD Player.app
/Applications/Extras/BlastApp.app
I have many many GB worth of other apps I'd love to be able to load back up, rather than spend hours re-installing them.
But I will try to use the Archive and Install feature though, once I have safely backed up my files. I found this on the Apple site also:
Archive and Install installations require the largest amount of available disk space because you need to have room to preserve your existing System and the new one you are installing
On my 250GB HD, my installation uses 200GB, and I only have about 40GB free. Will Archive and Install be able to work with this little space?
Thanks

Help for with slow, glitchy (late 2012) iMac

This is an ANSWER and not a request for help. I didn't know where to post this and apologize for stepping where I shouldn't.
I have a Late 2012 iMac that has been crashing, running slow, and now worse; all my documents and everything in Finder have disappeared. I discovered a fix that may help others with similar issues. I use my iMac for use with Logic Pro X and Mainstage where freezeups are a disaster. I thought about this awhile and realized I had installed a new USB 3.0 external hard disk a few months ago when this issue began. I began to experience more and more crashes and extremely slow performance. Beach-balls and slow performance were common. But the last straw was when everything in Finder disappeared. My Document and Application folders were empty. If I clicked on "About This Mac" I saw nothing. It took two tries to prove my theory, but here's what I did to make "the fix". I unplugged the USB 3.0 drive and all USB and external devices. I did a restore of OSX Mt Lion. All was back to normal. But after plugging in the USB 3.0 drive, all the afore mentioned problems came back. I did one more restore, this time NOT connecting the USB 3.0 external hard disk. Now I have gone some time and my iMac's speed is back to "incredible", no beach balls or any sign of slow performance in recording or running any other app. Apparently, the 2012 iMac; although spec'ed to be USB 3.0 compatible, may not be all that compatible. Hope this helps someone!

Likely the external drive is bad or defective cable.

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