Those weird PC noises you've heard are coming from the Epic Games Launcher

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  • Epic Games Launcher has been identified as the culprit behind mysterious chimes on users' PCs
  • Epic has confirmed it's planning to update the launcher to reduce the frequency of its 'party chimes'
  • Users have requested a feature that turns off the chimes altogether

Multiple PC users have recently noticed mysterious sounds playing at random, and it appears the Epic Games Launcher is the culprit.

As reported by TweakTown, a Fortnite news page on X discovered the Epic Games Launcher randomly playing sounds on their PC, as several audio files matching them were found in the Epic Games 'social chimes' folder.

Each sound represents actions in a game party, such as a party user leaving, push-to-talk activation or deactivation, and message notifications, which sounds bizarre as this occurs even when users aren't in Epic Games parties.

Epic has since confirmed (via a FortniteStatus X page) that the 'party chimes' were playing more frequently than necessary, and it is now updating the Epic Games Launcher to 'narrow which events play a sound while the launcher is in the background'.

These party chimes are sounds I've noticed on my Windows 11 system, playing at very random intervals, and sometimes even when the launcher isn't visibly open. The sounds aren't accompanied by pop-up notifications either, which only added to the confusion for me and many other PC users previously trying to pinpoint the source.

Apps open in the background on Windows 11

(Image credit: Future)

TweakTown states that Epic plans to introduce an option to toggle the chimes on or off in the future, but, surprisingly, a toggle option isn't a top priority as of now — especially since user replies berate Epic for not including an option to remove the sounds altogether.

For now, at least, a quick workaround is to delete the files from the directory as follows: Program Files (or Program Files x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\Portal\Extras\SocialChimes. It's worth noting that this is only a temporary fix, as Epic Games Launcher updates will likely overwrite this and place the files back into the directory.

Perhaps this entire case serves as yet another reason to use Steam for many users, where bugs are rare occurrences — but at the very least, PC users can rest knowing there isn't some unwanted or unknown application running on their system.



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