Missing 3b1 beep/bell

[David T. Sandberg]

I've been getting along with this problem for well over a year now,
but I thought it might be worthwhile to post this in case someone out
there has a flash of insight to offer.

My 3b1 (2 Meg RAM, Unix 3.51, 67MB drive, no cards) has no "beep".
Echoing ^G to the console doesn't work, nor do any of the error
conditions in vi, alert sounds from write(1), and so forth.  Now,
occasionally I swear I can actually hear the bell at an _extremely_
low volume if I lean my head down right next to the machine, though
no one else seems to be able to (I know what it's supposed to sound
like from hearing the bell on other 3b1s).  More often, however,
there's absolute silence.

My understanding is that the beep is produced by the same hardware
and speaker as the OBM's sound.  What's strange is that the OBM
functions flawlessly (well, as flawlessly as OBMs get ;'), including
sending sound to the speaker when it's expected to and at the proper
volume levels (as set with the volume slider on the side of the box).
At the least this implies that the problem isn't just a disconnected
speaker (unless my information is wrong and there is another speaker
involved).

Comments?  Cliches?  Critique?  Any/all ideas are invited.

-- 
     "I hear their passionate music, read the words that touch my heart..."
David Sandberg						  dts at quad.sialis.mn.org