Ghost in the machine - PC spontaneously decides to power itself on

[nenforcer]

Hi, not sure if this is the right section for this post, but I have a PC with an ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard along with a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750W PS running Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit edition.

I didn't use this machine much until recently and when I power it off at night it strangely at some point later will miraculously power itself back on. I leave the network connection (cable modem) plugged in but as far as I know there is no WOL (Wake On LAN) enabled.

I have another PC I normally use and it stays off when turned off. Is this an odd power supply or motherboard issue or possibly a network activity turn on? I have a D-Link router with firewall enabled.

I will try and leave the network cable unplugged to see what happens. I will also check my BIOS settings and see if there is some sort of WOL setting for PC wakeup.

Thanks.

 

[Zap]

Funky! I've seen that happen before in a computer I built for my (then) girlfriend (now wife). She lived in an old duplex for three months, in Roseburg, OR. During that time her computer would randomly turn itself on. I even saw it happen when I was visiting her. That computer never did that before, nor after she lived there. I never did figure out what caused the issue.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Time to replace the CMOS battery?

 

[nenforcer]

I believe it has something to do with leaving the network connection plugged in. I unplugged it last night and it never powered itself back on. That's some crazy stuff, I wonder what kind of packets are triggering the machine to power itself back on? It happens within an hour every time, as well.

 

[Jest3r]

Obviously haunted.

If you do figure more out about this, I'd like to know how and why it's happening.

 

[Qbah]

I believe there is an option in some BIOSes that allows a computer to power on on LAN activity. You might double check if yours perhaps has it?

 

[nenforcer]

I'm pretty sure I found out what it was and it turns out it was not the network connection.
I left that unplugged and sure enough the machine powered back on.

I went into the BIOS and confirmed under the APM power management settings Power On by PCI/E Devices was "Disabled".

I began to wonder if it was perhaps a BIOS lying to me but I then disabled Power On by Keyboard (Space Bar) and Mouse and low and behold the machine never turned back on.

I have a Razor Boomslang PS/2 mouse and a Microsoft PS/2 keyboard and I suspect one or the other was triggering the power on.

Still kind of freaky - maybe I have ghosts who are trying to use my computer at night!

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Jest3r
Obviously haunted.

That's what we suspected of that duplex in Roseburg. My GF/wife also mentioned that she had felt someone push her gently from behind (hand on her back), though nobody was there. That was while she was walking down the stairs. :Q