Laughing Baby Sound...Possible Virus?

[drpanda]

I'm asking on behalf of my partner although I have a Mac as well. Partner has a Mac Mini running OSX El Capitan version 10.11.1.

A few weeks ago my partner began hearing a strange laughing baby sound. It would come on at random intervals without him doing anything. We went to Accessibility to make sure Voice Over was off, which was suggested by someone else on a different forum. This didn't change anything. The sound, which was a sort of "hehe", would come on unprompted regardless of what programs were open or if the computer was touched at all.

He even called Apple Care and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. He ended up uninstalling the operating system and reinstalling it, but managed to save his files on an external drive. But that sound came back. Luckily, it's only the sound that he's been dealing with. His files seem fine, nothing else is happening, etc.

I ran Malware Bytes and Avast, did full system scans. But neither program turned up anything. I still think it's a virus though but I'm trying to figure out what else we can try.

Anyone else had a similar problem? What might be the fix? He's thinking of taking his Mac Mini into the Apple Store for them to do a scan but I'd like some perspective before he tries that.

Thanks.

 

[Pakaku]

Does he have any friends who would be likely to pull a prank on him like that?

 

[drpanda]

Does he have any friends who would be likely to pull a prank on him like that?

Nah. I'm the type who'd be the one pulling the prank. Oh, some ex-boyfriends but I don't think any of them were particularly computer savvy. But nah, I highly doubt it. Is there a way to noodle around and figure out what might be going on?

 

[ocabj]

This is why I keep Holy Water in my house.

 

[drpanda]

See and I don't know if this helps but the sound's really only heard when Safari's opened. So we thought it might be a notification to a website. Yet we can't identify a potential website that triggers it (I thought it was Facebook but that's not it) and we already checked notification settings.

But honestly...real help would be appreciated.

 

[mw360]

See and I don't know if this helps but the sound's really only heard when Safari's opened. So we thought it might be a notification to a website. Yet we can't identify a potential website that triggers it (I thought it was Facebook but that's not it) and we already checked notification settings.

But honestly...real help would be appreciated.

Take a look in System Preferences -> Sounds and see if 'Laugh' is in the list, and see if it selected as the system alert sound.

 

[DominicORourke]

I used to to use Soundflower to control and mute audio from various sources when I would podcast.

It's been five years, but I wonder would something like that help eliminate sources that aren't producing the sound?

 

[Gregg2]

It's not a virus, so don't bother with anti-virus software downloads if there isn't one already installed. I don't know if it would help to download and run Adware Medic. Anybody else think that would be a thing to try?

 

[cdcastillo]

Does he have any friends who would be likely to pull a prank on him like that?

This was my first thought also. Have you tried to see if the sound is coming from the computer?, as in connecting headphones, or speakers (wired or through airplay) to see if the sound keeps routing through them. The simplest explanation would be a prank, and it won't even had to come from the computer itself, but might be coming from its vicinity (a hidden speaker on the desk, for example).

Take a look in System Preferences -> Sounds and see if 'Laugh' is in the list, and see if it selected as the system alert sound.

An excellent suggestion. Have you?

It's not a virus, so don't bother with anti-virus software downloads if there isn't one already installed. I don't know if it would help to download and run Adware Medic. Anybody else think that would be a thing to try?

Nope, not worth to even try it.