It's Alive!: Computer powers up on it's own

[AC]

It occasionally does that. It's not powered down often enough to determine what time of the day, but the times that I've seen it power up was at 4am, 8am, 7am, 7am, and 8:30am.

I don't think it is WOL related since I didn't plug in that cable at all and it's disabled in the BIOS. Could it be that something's shorting out the power supply? I'm at a lost here.

 

[Killbat]

Check up on the "Wake on alarm" feature in the BIOS, but that doesn't explain different times of day...

 

[anazoal]

Wouldn't happen to be a G4 Mac?

Check the power button circuit (well, it happened to the Mac's!). But more than likely it'l be something in the BIOS options. BTW, is it waking up at EXACTLY those times? Is the modem connected?

 

[AC]

I had this case with a previous system (ASUS P2B-F) and didn't have any problems. The power supply is 300W.

The settings in the BIOS have been verified to be correct.

I'll take apart the ATX power button later today to check it out.

It doesn't do that everyday though. Some days it stays off entirely.
I took note of the time when it powers on (from an off state, not standby) that I've noticed. According to my clock, the times are fairly accurate +/- 3min.

I am at a college dorm connected via the campus network. The dorm has known to have power shortages (the building's circuit breakers trigger on a fairly regular basis) but I have a APC Back-UPS Pro 500 to normalize the power input.

From my understanding of ATX, it is not capable of powering on a computer from an off state. Then what are probable reasons why it is shorting the "power on" circuit on the motherboard without pressing the button?

 

[htown]

Yep the bios has a wake up feature. Check to see if its enabled. If so then disable it to see if the computer turns on by itself. Could be a ring on feature also so that the pc wakes up when someone calls the telephone.

Read your manual for auto startups to better understanding but check the bios.

 

[AC]

no modem installed, only nic, but WOL wire not connected

BIOS "claims" that the mentioned settings are disabled. how do i tell whether it's lying to me?

 

[AC]

anyone else have any ideas?

 

[AC]

I still can't isolate the problem. Anyone?

 

[scorpioLP]

Disconnect the cable from your NIC.

Monitor for 24 hours or until your satisfied.

This way you'll know if it's coming from the network side of things or whether it's a BIOS issue.

 

[AC]

yeah, i'm pretty sure it doen't have anything to do with WOL, but I can't figure out what will power-on a computer from an off state except for the power button.

 

[Oric]

Use your computer without an UPS and see if the problem persists or not.

 

[AC]

I've had this UPS with a previous system and didn't encounter any problems, but I'll give it a try.