Reply With QuoteIt's your cryogenic chamber alarm.
To the point...
2 days ago we started hearing a beep every 5 minutes. Last night we wasted about 1.5 hours trying to locate it - and now it's still going strong and starting to wear on our nerves.
(it's coming from somewhere in the kitchen/living room vicinity). We sit in the kitchen and it sounds like it's coming from the living room. We sit in the living room and it sounds like it's coming from the kitchen.
We've ruled the following out:
* Smoke Detectors.
* Carbon Monoxide Detectors.
* External Stove Temp Monitor.
* Inside/Outside digital remote thermometer.
* Cordless phones. One 800 MHZ and one 900 MHz.
* Cellular Phones.
Is it at all possible it could be one of these?
* 15 year old refrigerator?
* 10 year old digital stove?
* Monster Surge Suppressor?
* 1 year old above-the-stove microwave?
* 1 year old ceiling light/fan? The $40 kind you get at Lowes?
* Directv TIVO unit?
* Yamaha Receiver?
We've sat next to each of what's listed above and it didn't seem like it... but we're at a loss and can't come up with anything else. We'd appreciate any help or advice anyone can give. Thanks.
Special notes:
* Intensity of beep is moderate. There's no dopplar effect so as you get closer, it doens't sound any louder.
* It is not the shrill high note of smoke detector.
* The intensity has not dimished at all since it started, and it sounds off exactly every 5 minutes.
It's your cryogenic chamber alarm.
It certainly could be the microwave or surge suppressor.
beeps like that can be very hard to locate, and especially frustrating when it's so slow that it's hard to track.
My guess is smoke detector, even though you think that's not it. Detach all your smoke detectors and remove all the batteries to see if that's really it. Make sure to test them when you put them back to make sure you've got 'em hooked up right.
Just wait it out a few months, you'll get so used to the beep you'll only notice when it finally stops.
De-battery all smoke detectors; my immediate bet's there too. But if not:
Go to circuit breaker. Kill power. If beeps persist, beeps are nothing that runs on house current. Search for the battery-powered bomb.
If beeps cease, bring circuits up in stages. The one that beeps start again on will help narrow it down. Start methodically unplugging things from that circuit. When beeps cease upon unplugging one thing, that's the thing.
It's the chip behind your right eyeball. Start digging.
The beeps are coming FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!
are the beeps exactly at the same interval?
The NSA is spying on you? ;)
We had a beep one evening in our house that happened about every 5 minutes, too. We never did figure out what it was, but my wife thinks it might have been her cellphone. It went away sometime overnight, though.
Cut the power (not for too long: remember the freezer!). This will narrow the candidates to battery or wall powered devices. However, I vote to stake the microwave
DAMN, you guys are good!!!!
arctangent - you nailed it!
When I went to emergency the other night I had to bring a cellphone. Since I rarely go anywhere, I have a pay-by minute cellphone that I only use for emergencies. I had to turn off all the functions in Emergency, but since I never use a cellphone, I didn't quite get them all. The cellphone was in the pocket of my spring jacket hanging on the back of a dining room chair. That chair is midway between the kitchen and living room. The chair is always pushed in under the table, and my is almost always there (hence it becomes invisible after a while). The pocket stifled the sounds just enough to make it impossible to zero in on.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You were cleared. Move along citizen.Originally Posted by arctangent
It's probably your cellphone. Some beep annoynigly if the battery is low. Mike Sofaer's phone was like that. Wasn't plugged in all the way and took me about 20 minutes to find the source at 7am. I only found it because it beeped while I was staring intently at the smoke detector ready to rip its guts out, so I knew it wasn't that. Only other thing in the vicinity was a phone plugged into (or not) a charger.
I think it's your cell phone. Mine used to do that when it was low on batteries. It took me several hours to finally find the cause of the beeping once. I only found it because I was about to call a friend to ask what that beeping could be -- and lo and behold! there it was.
Read a couple posts up.
My wife was right? Heh, I thought it might have been the microwave. :)
Glad you found it, jpinard.
TRUE STORY.
I vote to stake fire.
4 8 15 16 23 42
Execute.
Something tells me its probably your cellphone, have you checked that?
Wait for it....
I TOLD YOU SO
Since I've actually read the thread I'll skip suggesting it's a cellphone and tell a similar but even more annoying story about endless beeping. Several years ago there was a power outage due to a snowstorm in the Seattle area. The power went out at my apartment around 5AM on a Friday morning and immediately the locked fire alarm system box right outside my door began beeping to let us know it didn't have power. And beeping. And beeping. I went to the complex office but because of the storm it wasn't open. I had no working phone because of the power outage, so I jotted down the number on the box and went to use a payphone, called, and left a message. No response that day and the box kept beeping, slowly changing tone as the battery it was running on wore down.
The power didn't come back on until Saturday afternoon around 2PM.
The next time that box started beeping I grabbed a screwdriver and pried the damn thing open to turn it off.
Attention whore.
I once saw a lady beep each time she tried to leave a store. The security person checked her bags, then asked her to open her jacket, then rechecked everything again. Each time she walked past the sensors, she beeped again. It must have been very annoying for her. Turns out someone had placed a stray security tag into her hood while in the store.
Dont open the hatch!
Everyonce and a while I will walk through one of them after shopping and they will go off. I look around and see that no one really gives a shit so I keep walking. I dont think I have ever had anyone open my bags and actually try and see if I was stealing something or if there was something that had a tag on it.I once saw a lady beep each time she tried to leave a store.
That's mean... but kinda funny :)
When I was in college, an alarm started going off on some truck in the dorm parking lot. It turned out that the guy was on vacation, and the college cops were too feckless to break into the car or whatever you need to do to get the thing to stop, so the horn just honked...and honked...and honked for the whole weekend. That really sucked.
Thanks for reminding me.
I've set those alarms off randomly at all sorts of stores and I've never been searched. Often there will be someone who works at the store near the door and when the alarm goes off I'll look around, spot them, and they'll just motion for me to keep going. One of the many perks of being a harmless looking white dude, I guess.
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