Missing Beep? Damn PC Speaker.
A while ago my Creative Audigy 2 ZS went tit's up. Not sure why, not sure how, and so on.
It started to play silly, forgetting settings, volume control not working correctly - not allowing 3D sound and what not. The thing I have been searching the net for was connected to the fact that my Microsoft (Natural Pro) keyboard's volume control would sometimes not work. Sort of freeze, only moving two bars each way - and not actually having any effect on the overall volume. Mute also wouldn't work.
The other symptom, is my Windows events, such as Exclamations. Instead of playing a wave sound (normally I have this turned off, but for the sake of troubleshooting), it would beep from my PC speaker (you know, the thing that goes bleep when your computer starts).
I think, but it is only a hunch, I may have fixed it. My computer is now making that horrible Windows clonk when pop-ups appear. So what did I do? I uninstalled my Belkin USB Bluetooth device.
Why on earth would this have any relation to my sound card? My thoughts exactly - it wasn't until I realised that it had an 'audio gateway' on it, which allowed it to interface with a device, and tell Windows it was a standard sound card. Because of this I expect that it simply comes down to the fact that Creative's infamously buggy software cannot cope with another audio device on the system.
This proves a slight problem, because I tend to use my Bluetooth adaptor (kinda why I bought it). Hopefully I'll be able to disable anything to do with audio on it.