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Why does my computer go nuts sometimes?

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Summary: If you have speech recognition always enabled it can cause your computer to "go nuts" because of the different sounds it interprets as actual words.

My computer behaves erroneously frequently. It suddenly closes all IE browser windows, opens start menu and repeats this process. OS: Windows XP. In the task manager I saw "sapisvr.exe" during this process sometimes, not all the time.

It's a really weird thing to watch - it's almost like your computer has suddenly become possessed. But the question holds a clue: sapisvr.exe.

Chances are, though, the computer is really only doing what you're telling it.

Literally.

Sapisvr.exe is Microsoft's Speech Recognition engine. When enabled, it listens to what's coming in on the microphone and attempts to interpret what it hears as words, then enters keystrokes to "type in" those words it heard.

That's nice, in principle, but if it's always enabled it can cause exactly the odd behavior you describe. You make a noise (just about any noise can cause it to think it's heard a word), and keystrokes get entered. Or ambient noise is enough to cause it to try to recognize speech.

Normally this feature should be disabled, but apparently some PC manufacturers or others enable it by default.

"... it listens to what's coming in on the microphone, and attempts to interpret what it hears as words, and then enters keystrokes to 'type in' those words ..."

To disable:

  • Go to Control Panel

  • Click on Regional and Language Options

  • Click on the Languages tab

  • Click on the Details button

  • Click on Speech Recognition

  • Click the Remove button

And if you're wondering why this could be happening if you don't have a microphone, look again. Many laptops in particular have built-in microphones, and I'm lead to believe that some other computers may as well.

Related:

Article 413 | Posted August 11, 2004

Recent Comments
33 Comments

Your article came up on Google and I wanted to thank you for having the directions for removing that microphone thing. Mine was running every time I started up Outlook and made everything run slow. Just wanted to say THANKS again for having this posted online. :))

Posted by: TheTess at July 23, 2006 2:34 PM

My PC sometimes always reboot for no reason, for an example, i was using Window Media Player while checking mail, it went reboot for no reason and restarted like it was nothing serious error happen. Then there's a time when i watch movie by using Window Media Player, it went reboot like just now,then i tried using the cyberlink software to watch again but it happened again when i was watching the movie(the pc reboot after sometime,not right after the movie played).There is another example,i opened too much IEXPLORER windows and it went reboot again.i can't play game even some game that require low performance like yahoo's ZUMA.Another problem is after i play some high requirement game for sometimes my pc went reboot for sure.Is this because of memory things and graphic card.I'm using Windows XP service pack 2 and i don't have a graphic card, my RAM is a single 512MB DDR II RAM.

Posted by: kent at September 1, 2006 11:21 AM

Great work Leo!!!
You helped me so much.
Regards

Posted by: Apostolos at February 15, 2007 2:57 PM

Leo,

Thank you. What a strange experience it is to watch one's computer start spitting out text in whatever textbox is active.

Leave it to Microsoft to install a friendly feature like this, and bury the disable way down inside a control applet. Come to think of it, there's no disable button--just a remove.

And even after Removing, according to Task Manager, sapisvr.exe is still running, soaking up 44K of RAM and another 28K of swap disk. I'll reboot to see if the bugger dissapears.

Another tidbit: according to TaskMan, sapisvr.exe has passed over 27 million bytes since boot, 4 days ago, and written over 19Mbytes. What can it be doing all that data?

Thanks again.

Posted by: Kurt W.G. Matthies at April 30, 2007 11:43 AM

My comp first used to suddenly reboot for no reason...whether i am playing a game or i am watching a movie or working....but now, it most of the times does not even starts...there are options shown such as
1) start in SAFE MODE.
2) Last known configeration.
3) Start windows normally...

i tried all of them, but after a few amount of time, the HDD light stops blinking and the PC is hanged even before it gets started...

Pl tell me what to do...onnly sometimes, if comp's Mood is fine(like now), or i try a hell lot of times then and then only the PC starts... PL HELPPP!!!!!

Posted by: Kaizad at October 20, 2007 11:51 PM

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There are many MANY reasons it might happen. Start with this article:
http://ask-leo.com/why_do_i_get_a_black_screen_on_my_computer_after_a_while.html

Sorry.

Leo

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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at October 22, 2007 11:09 AM

Thanks.I have the latest Vista and from day one it started giving problem similar to those discussed above.I tried all that is written above to no avail.In my case,the mouse moves in a random fashion,in Chat,email,Excel and Word resulting in lots of mistakes,making me go crazy.I have tried the latest NOD32 and no virus/worm is detected.The NOD32 company asked me to go in for windows updates ,which I have done.Still I am left with this hounded machine.PLEASE HELP

Posted by: Neel at February 4, 2008 7:06 AM

When I am in Mozilla or IE all of a sudden the text in the browser window will start jumping all around. I have to shut my computer down for it to stop. When I open any document everything is also jumping around. You can hear a noise coming from the computer when this happens as well. I use a wireless mouse. If you grab the slider on the right of the window it will flicker also and return you to the top of the page automaticaly. Very frustrating
Please let me know what I should do.

Posted by: mark whalen at April 24, 2008 8:29 AM

why does my computer mouse stop working, red light goes out, when I unplug it and plug it back in it works again.

Posted by: shannon at October 20, 2008 3:18 AM

every time i connect to the internet and it shuts down after a warning of a generic host process win32 service appears and when service pack 2 is installed my computer won start up at all

Posted by: nelly at November 23, 2008 7:32 AM

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