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ucyimb4u · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 4

Hi,

Just recently, while up and running fine, my laptop will start a repetitive beep (once a second) that will keep going until I reboot. This is an application beep through the sound card, not a board beep (if I mute, I don't hear the sound). This doesn't happen every time and there doesn't seem to be any app that is starting/ending at the time this starts to happen.

The sound I hear is the same noise you get when you try to kill off a parent window when a child is still open. (For example, bring up Media Player, click on File -> Open, then click on the big red X on the Media Player window [not the child window that you got on File -> Open]. The child window will flicker and you will get a short, one tone beep [or bonk?]. If you keep hitting the red X once a second, you'll get the annoying situation I am experiencing).

The system runs fine this way, but I have to keep the sound muted. Gets a little tough when working in Audacity.

I have killed off all applications and there aren't any error windows lurking in the background. I bring up task manager and the Applications tab is empty. I have about 65+ processes running. I sort them by CPU use and the only task really taking CPU is the System Idle Process (as expected). I have killed off all the processes the system will let me and still the repetitive beep continues.

Any ideas how to find out who is crying for attention but too shy to come forward? Thanks much.

Russ
WinXP Home (SP2).

ucyimb4u · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 4

The plot thickens. I have done some more digging on this, mainly because I am trying to do some music editing, so muting this annoying interruption isn't an option.

Since the time when 'it' starts happening is random (some sessions it never occurs, others will get interrupted after a couple hours, and some get interrupted not long after I start), I assumed something else on the system is the triggering event. Now, how to find it?

I brought up a clock that displays down to the second and parked that on a corner of the screen that I wouldn't overlay with any of the other windows I had open. Then, as soon as this *&^$^ interruption starts, I can see when it starts happening (to the second if I am quick enough). Once 'it' starts, I bring up Windows Explorer, select the C: drive, then search for all files modified today and sort them from most recent to oldest.

I have been able to do this several times now, and the same file appears at the top of the list every time. AND, it is some sort of a log file that timestamps its entries. AND, there is an entry made in this file everytime I have trapped the start of this annoyance. AND the timestamp in the file and the time on the clock MATCH

Maybe I am reading too much into this coincidence, but I'm going down the track that these two events are connected until I find something else that seems to correlate or until someone else can talk me out of it.

The file that is logged to at the same time 'it' starts is C:\Program Files\ThinkPad\Utilities\1983russ.PWM. Any idea what this file is and who is logging to it? Any hints or suggestions are appreciated.

Russ
WinXP Home (SP2).

ucyimb4u · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 4

Hi,
Nobody knows who defines/uses the .PWM filetype? I have searched a bunch of sites that claim to list every file type known to man (or at least to Windows) but no one lists this one. And there isn't much in the registry for this type. But some app on my system is creating and updating it. Any ideas on how to find out who? Thanks much.

Russ
WinXP Home (SP2)

ucyimb4u · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 4

The writer of this file is
C:\Program Files\Thinkpad\Utilities\PWRMGRTR.DLL,
which Process Explorer caught for me. Looking at the stack for this entry, and then getting the module properties for this program, I have learned that this is the "Thinkpad Power Manager Background Monitor and Tray Battery Gauge V1.0.0" by Lenovo.

Now that I knew this had to do with the battery, I dug a little deeper. The filename, '1983 Russ.PWM,' makes perfect sense now. Russ is me and 1983 is part of the unique ID for the battery itself. The file is a log, which seems to contain battery charge %, minutes left to drain battery or to fully charge, count of charge cycles, etc.

Entries in the log are a date for each day I boot up followed by a line every 30 minutes which is timestamped (which is how I know the start of the repetitive beeps and the log entry coincide). The timed entries will be either a single number (1 through 4) or a zero followed by a whole string of numbers, like this:

[2008-04-11]
18:42:23=1
19:12:23=0,0,1,100,82950,83370,16,0

My guess, after staring at entries in this log are: the 4th number is battery charge %, the 5th and 6th are capacity values, the 7th is the recycle count, and the last number is zero if we are on AC and fully charged, otherwise it is the number of minutes till battery death if running on battery or the number of minutes till the battery is fully charged.

The log entry, when the beeps start, has always been one of these 'zero' entries and the entry immediately preceeding it will contain a single 1.

Yeah, my understanding of the details of this file is pretty sketchy, so I am casting around for someone who has a deeper understanding and can tell me if my symptoms and the entries in this file are somehow related. Any ideas?

Russ
WinXP Home (SP2)

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