If the sounds are coming from the speakers then it might be just when the computer looks for updates online for the various programs. If it comes from the tower itself then perhaps it is as the hard drive activates, mine is a noisy hard drive but the particular model is known for that. Keeping a computer running or not is purely a personal choice, neither way is right or wrong necessarily. I ran mine for years when they were doing some distributed computing trying to find a cure for cancer. Never hurt them at all, just the hydro bill. Still run mostly 24/7 through laziness I s'pose. Wouldn't hurt to hang on to the box for a while, once you are satisfied the computer is running good than you might decide to get rid of the box.

I took the liberty of tagging the original thread that could have been considered for use for an update.It has response information which has already been shared. I for one did not have any recollection of the thread and perhaps others wouldn't have either. DA Here is a link that might be useful: Original Thread

How old is this laptop and what OS does it have? It is more likely a setting or a hardware problem than a bad sound card. Another thing to try is press down hard near the ON switch and see if the sound comes on. If it does, then there is a short in the connection that governs the speakers and the ON switch. That's what my problem was, and it requires taking the laptop apart and replacing the connecting ribbon. There are some videos available on You Tube that show how to do this, but first you need to find out the cause of your problem.

Well, actually it looks like chuggerguy is correct. I would never have thought the sound would be coming from my cell phone. Two grandkids, 8 and 9, were here for a few days. I let them play games on my computer. I have an idea they have played around with my cell phone, too, which was plugged in on my husband's desk nearby. It is an I-phone 4- about 2 years old. I hope the sound doesn't mean something is going wrong with it. Owbist, the number on the front of the computer is SR1230NX. Belarc shows many numbers, the most likely, I think is CNH4360SQ1. My eyes are not good enough to see the label on the back. Belarc shows 512 usable memory- Slot A0 is empty. Slot A1 has 512 MB. Snidely, I have a Win 7 but I really like this XP. It might be easier to just give up the XP but I would still like to do something about the slowness.