I think it may be something to do with the Touchsmart application itself. I had exactly the same thing, until I told the Touchsmart application not to reload at startup or precache (it's in the options).
Now, since removing it from startup, mine nolonger does the annoying mouse clicky thing. Obviously, because it's no longer preloaded at startup, it takes longer to start, but I've pretty much given up using it anyway (too buggy and not suitable for large music collections).

Gaz* said: How do you find the general noise generated by the Touchsmart? Mac's are supposed to be virtually silent but I get a lot of static and crackling noise from the HP, which I take to be harddrive sounds. I've listened to a couple of other Touchsmarts and they are the same. The retail tech department guy says it is within spec, so I guess it's only me that notices it. Nobody else mentions it on the net. How do you eliminate that beeping noise when you touch the screen? I can't seem to shift it. Thank you.

I know this doesn't help you Gaz, but I've not noticed any real noise coming out of my Touchsmart at all.

As for the Touch sound when you touch the screen, yes, that is VERY annoying. You can turn it off using the 'HP Touchscreen' Control Panel applet, but it's 50% likely to return when you reboot and (in my experience) 95% likely to return when you exit the TouchSmart software. I wish they'd fix this - it's REALLY annoying. (The older Touchsmart IQ770 suffers from the exact same issue as well, and I can't believe that they haven't noticed it in testing).

The noise you hear is coming from the Browser or the RSS reader in the HP TouchSmart software. It is the IE navigation sound. The HP TouchSmart software is designed to start up in the background in order to give a more "instant on" response when the desktop icon or front bezel button is activated. This background startup will also preload all the applications that are behind the tiles, including RSS Reader and Browser.

The background startup behavior can be turned off in Personalize - TouchSmart Settings as Richard mentioned above. Alternatively you can turn off the Browser and RSS Reader tiles in Personalize.

If you turn off the background startup, you'll have a slower reaction time for the HP TouchSmart software start, but you'll have more free memory and less CPU usage. It's the usual tradeoff between quick startup and more resource usage or slower startup and less resource usage. The choice is up to each individual.

In the first series (IQ500) background start was a factory-preselected option. In the second series (IQ800) I believe the background start was no longer preselected from the factory.

Can anyone advise me how to switch off the Start navigation effect in the Sound control panel?

I've been in there and I can't work out how to switch off any individual sound, unless I'm blind.

Thanks again.