How to turn off the touch interface sound?

[arch07js]

Model: HP Touchsmart IQ826t

Finally get to use this machine the way it was intended now that Windows 8 is out, but the touch interface sound is bothersome. Seems as though it should be the easiest thing in the world to turn off.. but I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Ive searched the web high and low..even seen others ask this same question with no response whatsoever.

How do I turn off the touch interface sound?? (the 'beep' sound made when my finger makes contact with the screen) Ive tried going to the now updated 'Pen and Touch' (previously HP Touchsmart Configurations) settings under the 'Hardware and Sound' in the Control Panel and..nothing.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[PeaceLily]

Hmm, I found how to disable these sounds in Vista (the original OS your model came with) but I'm not able to find a corresponding process for Windows 8. In Vista you would go to Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > HP Touch Screen Configuration > Global Settings tab, under "Touch Screen Sound," select "Disable" and then click Save. But that doesn't help...

In Windows 8 I searched the same places you probably checked in the Hardware and Sound section of Control Panel (Change system sounds, Pen and Touch, Tablet PC Settings). I'm not finding a control for touch sounds.

Would it work to turn off System Sounds on your computer? Go to the Windows desktop and right-click the speaker icon in the right side of the taskbar, and select Open Volume Mixer. Under System Sounds you can drag the slider down or completely mute sounds without affecting the audio in other applications.

The Win8 TouchSmart I'm using doesn't have touch screen sound whatsoever, so I can't test if this works on my computer. I hope it will work for you though. I bet that sound is annoying! Best of luck.

[2rett3arter]

I am having the same problem. I tried turning off the systme sounds this way and it didn't change anything with the screen beep. Any other suggestions would be helpful. 

[lil-liebe]

Hi,

My TouchSmart doesn't make a sound when I touch the screen, but I'm going to try to help you anyway. Bear with me; I'm flying blind.

Consider giving this a try, but be warned that it may turn off many system notification sounds and other sounds, even if you're clicking with a Mouse pointer (you will still be able to listen to music, etc., and features such as Narrator will still work) :

In Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound. Click Sound. On the Sound window, select the Sounds tab.

Now it's time to do a test: Select No Sounds from the drop-down under Sound Scheme, click Apply, and then click OK.

Touch your screen. Do you get the same beeping sound?

If you want to turn sounds back on, on the Sounds tab of the Sound window, select Windows Default from the drop-down. You can also turn the sounds on or off for specific features, such as Empty Recycle Bin: Click on the desired feature in the Program Events window. If turning on a sound, in the drop-down under Sound in the lower-left side of the menu, select a sound from the list. Click the Test button to hear the sound. Click Apply if you want to keep the sound. If you want to turn off a sound, click the desired feature in the Program Events window, and then select (None) from the drop-down under Sound. Click Apply.

[jeromecarney]

I have this same issue and have spent hours trying to solve it, including all suggestions from previous posters, without success.

It's a crying shame, too, because with Win 8, Microsoft has finally caught up with an OS that's worthy of the TouchSmart.  So you finally really want to start touching it -- but then the constant barrage of beep-beep-beep with every screen interaction becomes so overwhelmingly annoying that you retreat to using the mouse and keyboard.

Please, HP, fix this !!!

[jeromecarney]

Hi HP ... me again.  Do you realize how much I HATE the touch sound on my TouchSmart?  It's the sound of an irritating, disdainful chirp, and thats chirps at me constantly, incessantly, aggressively, like the half breed offspring of a dripping faucet and a murderous baby chick, everytime bloody time I touch the screen of my HP TouchSmart.

And every time I think in response:  [Content Removed]

Is this truly the response you want users to associate with your brand?  I'm a major purchase influencer at a very large international organization, and now I find myself getting a knot in my stomach every single time I see your logo or send a print job to a [Content Removed] printer.

And this is a no-brainer ... somewhere, someone in your development team knows the registration setting tweak that will save your brand's reputation, at least for this user.  If you can't spare the resources to put out a proper fix, at least leak the tweak somewhere on a user forum.

[OrnahP]

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forums. I'm sorry but this is a peer-to-peer community of HP customers, and not a venue to contact HP directly. Most of the users here are consumers like yourself who are offering solutions because they like to help others, and any HP employees you see are here on their own capacity and not representing the company.

If you have additional or direct feedback for HP about their products or services, or questions about repair, you can use the link below for contact information.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-contact-us.html

If you have other questions and concerns about using the forum, please feel free to send me a private message.

[2rett3arter]

Lil-liebe - thanks for the help. No luck on fixing the beep though. I only use the touch smart occasionally so the beep isn't going to kill me, but it couldn't be more annoying. It's like the touchscreen is shocking me everytime I click the screen. Shock therapy, lol. After enough shocks I learn my lesson and just stop using it.

Which is really to bad because It seems like there should be a simple fix for something like this. so it's disappointing to realize that I still won't be using my touch smart with windows 8, even though the operating system is a perfect fit and it improved the functionality ten fold.

Thanks for trying though.

- bummed customer

[jeromecarney]

I do appreciate the response!  And next time, I'll know that, instead of using silly punctuation signs to indicate naughty words, I'll just use the bracketed phrase "content removed" to indicate that I've pre-emptively bleeped myself!

And to echo 2rett3arter below, yep, the inability to turn off the Interface Sound renders the otherwise beautiful pairing of Windows 8 and my HP TouchSmart useless as a fun touch screen device:  it's a fine device, yep, but a fun one, no.

It's very disappointing and you can add me to your list of bummed and grumbly customers.

[bigun]

I have an HP IQ504, which was running Win7 until last night.  I tried replacing the HDD with an SSD, and installing Win8.1 from scratch.  I must say, the results were stunningly good.  Win8.1 makes this PC run better than it ever has before.  All of the devices except one had drivers after a clean install of Win8.1.  The remaining driver was found by searching Windows update.  No driver downloads needed, and it is running FANTASTIC.

The one issue was the beeping sound when using the touchscreen.   I searched for a software solution, didn't find anything.  Since i already had the back cover off (to replace the hard drive), I decided to apply a HW fix 

The beep is NOT coming from the normal PC audio system, it's coming from the "PC speaker", which is normally used for BIOS error codes and not much else.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_speaker

Here's how to disable that speaker once and for all:

1.  Follow the process to remove the back cover here:  http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01498969 

2.  Take off the metal cover that covers up the motherboard.  There are a bunch of black screws you need to remove, I believe there are 12 of them.  After taking the screws off, the metal cover comes off pretty easily.  I attached a picture with the metal cover removed.

3.  Locate the PC speaker.  It is a small circular disc, maybe the size of a quarter if i recall correctly, and it has 2 red wires running to it.  I attached a picture of the PC speaker.

4.  Clip the two red wires using a nail clipper or wire cutters (be careful not to clip anything else besides those two wires).  As a precaution, use a little electrical tape to tape off the bare ends of the wires you just cut (only need to tape the ends coming from the circuit board, not the ends leading to the speaker).  I attached a picture of the speaker after surgery.  

Voila!

Hope this helps someone.