I'm on my neighbor's wifi and my computer made this weird dial-up sound like it was calling a number. What was that?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/2013 11:28PM by wine country girl.

I don't know, but I think it might have been a tiny glitch when reverted to "Dial Up" -- if it was anything like what I used to hear.
Or it was
crossing wires, we used to say, with some other system that was interfering.

Visiting a relative, I noticed the TV would pick up some of the dialog between the tower and planes landing!

I'm just rambling! :-)

Lol! Thanks thanks SusieQ. You made me chuckle.

Does your computer have a modem? Is it connected to a live phone line? If yes, and yes, and you don't use it any more unplug it.

At one time there was a computer virus going around that would make your modem dial an international number. You would then end up with a large charge on your phone bill for dialing that number. Kind of like calling a 1-900 number here in the US.

Scan your computer for viruses to be safe. If you don't have antivirus software on your computer you can get it free here.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download

http://www.safer-networking.org/

Does it have a dial-up modem? And, is there a phone line connected to it?

I plug my cell phone into my computer with a USB cable to charge the phone battery. When I unplug it there is a sound something like you discribed. Possibility?

You could have also just somehow inadvertently chosen the dial-up mode on your computer. But I also think you would have had to have telephone number in there that it was searching for. The modem will go out automatically with a T.30 type signal whether or not it receives one in return.

Probably a dropped connection followed by a reconnect.

As far as the computer goes, it'll treat one wireless 802.11 connection like any other. Connecting to the neighbor's wireless won't expose your computer hardware to malicious interference unless your neighbor is some kind of super-hacker (in which case, he probably wouldn't be granting such liberal access to his wireless network).