Computer Turning on Seemingly at Random

[frying_pan_cat]

My computer has developed an odd fault. It will turn on at random times. It will occasionally turn on when I am not here or in the middle of the night when I've forgotten to turn it off at the plug but most of the time it happens when I hibernate, it will reboot instead of power down even though it has hibernated. It does not do this every time so it doesn't seem to be a problem with hibernation and it will turn on at random when completely powered down.

I have checked that power over lan is disabled and I have tried disconnecting the switch when the problem was really bad and it wouldn't turn off which seemed to fix the fault temporarily but when i reattached the switch it seemed fine for ages afterwards. The problem seems very intermittent so I don't know if the switch being disconnected was a red herring as I removed a lot of other components at the same time to try to diagnose the problem.

Does anyone have any idea what may be causing this?

Thanks

 

[frying_pan_cat]

frying_pan_cat,

quality name


As Jason said, if you have wake up features enabled in your bios, it is possible that something is making contact with the keyboard or mouse and firing the pc up.

Thanks

I'll have a look in the bios to see if there are any wake up features enabled. My board is an Asus p5Q-e. Does anyone know where to look for them on this board encase I miss any?

 

[frying_pan_cat]

I've just had a look and all the power on by ... options are set to disabled so it looks like it's not my mouse or keyboard causing it

 

[frying_pan_cat]

well it must be something to do with windows power saving features, try this:

right click desktop > properties (or personalise if vista/win7) > click ScreenSaver > in the Power management groupbox click "Change power settings" > check which plan you are using and click "Change plan settings" and then "Change advanced power settings".

Have a look through all the options in the tree, maybe under Sleep or something there might be a option thats making the pc wake up after so long you could change.

Thats all i can think of at present.

Under sleep there was an option Allow wake timers which was set to enable. I have now set it to disable so I'll see if that affects it

 

[frying_pan_cat]

Open command prompt and type in "powercfg -devicequery wake_armed" that will normally tell you whats waking your computer.

I just did this and I get

HID-compliant mouse
HID Keyboard Device
Standard PS/2 Keyboard

Does this mean that my mouse and keyboard are set to wake the computer and if so how do I disable these as I couldn't see anything in the BIOS that was enabled?

 

[frying_pan_cat]

If you go into device manager, You can tell them not to wake the computer.

Right click > Power management. I can almost guarantee it is just the mouse doing it.

Thanks, I've unticked the let this device wake the computer on my mouse now. Didn't even realise it was an option or I would have checked there before. Hopefully that'll fix the problem

 

[frying_pan_cat]

This hasn't helped, I just hibernated my computer and it immediately came back on after it powered down

 

[frying_pan_cat]

Try "powercfg -lastwake" and see what it says.

I get

Wake History Count - 1
Wake History [0]
Wake Source Count - 0

 

[frying_pan_cat]

Yes I am using Windows 7. I have disabled that option but the problem still persists

 

[frying_pan_cat]

I'll give that a go

 

[frying_pan_cat]

frying_pan_cat, like you checked in device manager for your mouse do the same for your network card. I had this and despite changing bios settings I ended up having to tell the network card not to wake the computer via device manager. I don't understand it exactly, but it was like it was treating any packet that headed it's way as a WOL packet, as opposed to just the magic packet that it should look out for. Hasn't been a problem for me since.

As far as the computer turning on randomly at night. Take a look at Task Scheduler and look at what tasks Microsoft have set to run during the night. I found 3 or 4 unnecessary ones that would turn my computer on during the night when in sleep. You can either disable them or change the trigger to user log on or something if you think they are important.

Computer instantly turning on when put into sleep mode is the sign of Wake on Lan being annoying. Go into device manager locate all the network devicese. Right click on each one and go into properties and disable everything to do with Wake on Lan. Other wise any time your router sends any data to your computer it will turn on again.

I have checked in Device Manager for the network devices and they both have WOL disabled. Is there anywhere else I could look for WOL?

As far as Scheduled tasks go I have had a look and there seem to be multiple tasks scheduled to run at night. Is there any way to change the triggers on all of them or will I have to do them all manually. Also does anyone know why there may be so many tasks scheduled to run at night as I've never had this problem before?

 

[frying_pan_cat]

I just disabled the scheduled tasks I didn't want manually and that sorted out the problem for me.

Did you go into the advanced tab of the network configuration and disable Wake on Magic packet, Wake on pattern match?

I didn't see the Wake on Magic Packet option before but I've disabled that now so I'll see if that helps.

I will go through the scheduled tasks and disable them later as I can't be bothered now

 

[frying_pan_cat]

I just unplug the fr****** things at night. The poltergeists can't do their evil things with no power and it saves the environment too.

I usually do but on occasion that I don't it gets annoying. Also it does it in the day when I'm not here and I don't want to be unplugging it every time I leave.

I've been having the same problem recently on Windows 7 Ultimate x64, with Abit IP35 Pro XE mobo. I've turned off 'allow this device to wake the computer' for the mouse and keyboard, will report back if it works.

When I did this it still happened but I have now turned off the Wake on Magic Packet setting as well and it hasn't done it again yet (only one night that it hasn't done it but fingers crossed)

 

[frying_pan_cat]

Confirming that disabling 'allow device to turn on computer' for mouse and keyboard didn't help, my pc turned on at 5am, turned it off, turned on again within a minute..

In device manager if you right click on your network adapter and go to properties then go to the advanced tab there's a box headed properties. If you go to the bottom of that list and click on Wake-Up Capabilities the drop down box on the right will probably have wake on magic packet or similar as the option selected. I have changed it to none which seems to have worked for me so far but the problem was intermittent so I can't say for sure if it's worked but you should give it a go and see if it helps

 

[frying_pan_cat]

None of that has fixed the problem as last night when I hibernated it for the night it rebooted instead of turning off.

 

[frying_pan_cat]

I will try that next time I power down and sii if it helps

 

[frying_pan_cat]

How about this, specifically the bit where it mentions turning off hybrid sleep:

http://www.anewmorning.com/2009/02/02/enable-hibernate-option-in-windows-7/

Hybrid Sleep is already turned off. It was one of the first things I did after install

 

[frying_pan_cat]

If you just shutdown the computer does it come straight back on?

Some times although the last couple of times I have turned it off it has stayed off, which could be a good sign or it may just be luck

 

[frying_pan_cat]

Just an update: it hasn't turned itself back on in the last week. The only thing I changed was swapping out an old DVD-RW for a new Blu-Ray drive although I don't know if the old drive could have been the problem