Computer wakes up at night, but not fully - fans spin up and that is it (solved)

[destrekor]

I can wake my computer from sleep no problem. It sleeps without an issue.

I've walked away from the computer after putting it to sleep and confirm it is asleep.

But I get to it in the morning and it is on, but not truly on. The keyboard and mouse and unlit, their is no display, no disk activity, but all the fans are on and sound like the system is under load (not on max but seems to be close?).

I've never experienced this before. This is a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro, I wiped the system clean maybe a month ago and started fresh. It hadn't been doing this, so I wonder if it was a recent update from Windows Update. I see there were a slew installed on 7/15 but I don't feel like it had started that early either, like it just began a few nights ago.
I haven't changed anything myself in terms of drivers or devices allowed to wake up a system or anything. No firmware updates for anything and no changes within BIOS.

I'm at a loss, really. I've just now started to try to figure this one out, so perhaps I'll figure it out myself, but I just don't get it. I can wake the system up fine, but the system seems to try and wake up on its own and fails.

 

[destrekor]

Actually, I lied... I cannot wake the system up from sleep.

So there's two issues: something is causing the system to wakeup even though I don't want it to, and the system is unable to even wake from sleep.

 

[destrekor]

Well that was simple!

I noticed my USB 3 external HDD would remain spinning after putting the PC to sleep. I then saw that one of the two USB 3.0 drivers in Device Manager had a yellow warning icon. Uninstalled and restarted, boom, that fixed the unable to wake issue.

Now to figure out which device is needlessly waking the system. That shouldn't be difficult.

 

[lazybedone]

Isn't it old enough and needs to be changed? or you just need to do a deep clean with your device?

 

[Ketchup]

What are the externals used for? Do you have an AV that runs at night? When you reboot it, do you notice Windows updates had be installed or immediately ready to install?

I wouldn't leave an external hard drive plugged unto a computer overnight. The general idea of an external hard drive (drive itself, not a NAS or anything like that) is to be portable storage, not a drive that constantly stays plugged into a single device.

 

[destrekor]

What are the externals used for? Do you have an AV that runs at night? When you reboot it, do you notice Windows updates had be installed or immediately ready to install?

I wouldn't leave an external hard drive plugged unto a computer overnight. The general idea of an external hard drive (drive itself, not a NAS or anything like that) is to be portable storage, not a drive that constantly stays plugged into a single device.

It's an external powered drive that stays standing on the desk. I'd say it is the kind that is meant to stay plugged in - it allows me to run scheduled backups whether I'm present or not.

The drive has never been a source of problems before, and it continues to work just fine. It was a USB driver issue - my P8Z68 has the NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 add-ons, before USB 3.0 was baked in by Intel. I've seen the driver have issues before and need a reinstall.


However, you did remind me: I forgot to change the Automatic Maintenance timing. It was waking my computer up at 2am. DOH!

 

[Ketchup]

It's an external powered drive that stays standing on the desk. I'd say it is the kind that is meant to stay plugged in - it allows me to run scheduled backups whether I'm present or not.

The drive has never been a source of problems before, and it continues to work just fine. It was a USB driver issue - my P8Z68 has the NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 add-ons, before USB 3.0 was baked in by Intel. I've seen the driver have issues before and need a reinstall.


However, you did remind me: I forgot to change the Automatic Maintenance timing. It was waking my computer up at 2am. DOH!

Gotcha. Yeah, having it's own power is good. And glad you got it sorted out. As I submitted my last post, I was thinking about software since you said it was always plugged in.

So, does it run all the time, or spin down when not in use? Most are the latter, and hopefully this one is too.