This is an amazing and troubling problem. It seems to relate to
Windows XP and dual core processors. Simply put, playing a sound
advances the system clock. I've seen extremes of about 6 to 10
seconds per minute. I suspect the problem is XP/Intel/MS related.

Our PC is a double dual core Intel Xeon: a Dell Precision 690 (which
has 2 Dempsey processors, Xeon 5050 series). We are running XP Pro
OS
've also seen this on another offbrand PC with a Core 2 processor.
This does not happen on non-dual core processor machines. Executing
a
"playsound" command (which is in the winmm.dll) instead of beep has
the same effect (I suspect Beep probably executes a playsound
command).


One way I demonstrate this is with a very simple program in Visual
Basic 6. I have a timer that executes a Beep statement every 20
milliseconds. That's all.


It can also be demonstrated manually by repetitively playing a sound
from the Windows Sounds dialog.


If anyone would like to try to replicate this on your dual core
system
I would be very interested in your results. I can be contacted at
curt.goodh...@navy.mil.


Thank you,


Curt