PC waking up by itself for just a couple minutes

[firebirdude]

So my computer seems to randomly wake itself up from a full sleep (ie. hard disks off, etc). However, the monitor does not awake from sleep during this time. I'm 10000% sure a button didn't get pressed or the mouse moved. I've been sitting in a silent room reading a book and all of a sudden the computer just powers on (except the monitor), goes for about 2-3 minutes, then returns to full sleep. I have the sleep setting set to like 2hrs.

If I purposely wake the computer by pressing a button on the keyboard, the computer powers up and the monitor turns on.

What the heck is going on? Seems like something has control of that on computer....

 

[mikeymikec]

Wired or wireless mouse? Wired mice are especially sensitive, a slammed door nearby might be enough to move the mouse a minuscule amount. I just disable the 'wake the computer using this device' for all pointing devices.

 

[firebirdude]

Wired mouse. I seriously doubt it picked up anything. It was so silent and still you could hear a pin drop, literally. BUT I will disable that and see if it helps. Where is that setting located?

 

[Ken g6]

Have you enabled hybrid sleep? The computer wakes itself up from sleep to go into hibernation.

 

[firebirdude]

Have you enabled hybrid sleep? The computer wakes itself up from sleep to go into hibernation.

I didn't know there was such a thing. And I don't see anything like that in my menus.

 

[Ken g6]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Sleep-and-hibernation-frequently-asked-questions

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/activate-hybrid-sleep-on-windows-pcs.html

 

[mikeymikec]

Have you enabled hybrid sleep? The computer wakes itself up from sleep to go into hibernation.

This is a desktop computer so this is incorrect.

Hybrid sleep is a feature introduced in Vista whereby Windows writes the contents of RAM to the hibernation file then goes into sleep mode. The purpose of this is to allow the computer to resume from hibernation if power was lost thereby losing the contents of the RAM. Otherwise it would resume from sleep mode the same, regardless of whether hybrid sleep is enabled.

A desktop computer does not go from sleep to hibernate unless it has been configured to by the user.

There is nothing special about hybrid sleep, it's just like normal sleep mode but with a file-based backup.

Windows on default settings on a laptop will however go from sleep mode to hibernate because sleep mode uses more battery power, therefore if it's left for long enough it may as well be completely turned off (ie. put into hibernate) to save power.

Wired mouse. I seriously doubt it picked up anything. It was so silent and still you could hear a pin drop, literally. BUT I will disable that and see if it helps. Where is that setting located?

Device Manager > Mice > HID compliant mouse > Properties > Power Management > 'allow this device to wake the computer'.

The Windows system event log stores some information on what woke the computer, but I haven't found it to be of much help that often. (start > run > eventvwr > windows logs > system)

There is a troubleshooting command you can run I think will inform you about what caused the computer to wake, but I can't think of what to search for to find it.

 

[CorsairDemon]

Disable wake on lan as well if possible. I've ran into some issues where this was waking systems up from sleep or from a complete off state. Check the driver and the BIOS.

Your description provides almost the proof. Had a few machines doing that recently due to IMEI and Wake On Lan events.

 

[lehtv]

I've had the Wake on LAN issue as well. You can easily prevent that by disallowing your NIC or network card from waking the computer in Device Manager:

 

[UsandThem]

There is a troubleshooting command you can run I think will inform you about what caused the computer to wake, but I can't think of what to search for to find it.

powercfg -lastwake

http://www.howtogeek.com/122954/how-to-prevent-your-computer-from-waking-up-accidentally/

 

[sm625]

When the machine hibernates it has to wake up in order to do it. It has to write the RAM to the HDD. On my machine this takes about 10 seconds.

 

[piasabird]

Turn wake on mouse activity off and only use a key press like the space bar.

 

[BW86]

Try turning off the option "Turn on Fast Startup" in "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\System Settings"

 

[ElFenix]

windows update loves to turn my computers on, especially right after i've put them to sleep. i've gone so far as to unplug one when it's not in use.

 

[go-2guy]

powercfg -lastwake

http://www.howtogeek.com/122954/how-to-prevent-your-computer-from-waking-up-accidentally/

Event viewer will be your friend here! The last wake cmd will identify the source and you should be able to fast track from there.