For those of you who own recent Agilent multimeters, could you try these experiments and let me know what happens?
1) Take an incandescent light bulb and check it on the continuity setting. Does it beep continuity or are you just getting an ohms value? If you have some way to test what ohms reading sets off the beeper and whether it always reacts at the same reading, that would be helpful too.
2) Hook the leads up to some sort of switch and check whether the continuity beeper works if you "test" the switch a number of times in succession.
These are both cases where I've had issues with my Agilent clamp meter in continuity mode (which I don't use very often). It won't beep for a good light bulb (easiest way to check...) and I recently installed some industrial grade door switches that I thought were malfunctioning because my clamp meter (2.5 m away) wasn't beeping every time I closed the switch. Needless to say, it was a pain in the ass trying to figure out the door switches till I realized it was the meter acting strangely.
Thanks!