Sometimes(I’d say about 6 out of every 10 times)I shut off my computer for the night and then I leave the room to get ready for bed and the damn thing re-starts on it’s own!
Last night it did this right after I had shut down at 11pm and my husband let me know that it was back on…But being lazy and cozy in bed already,I said ‘screw it, I will just let it go’.
So this morning when I get up at 8 am,I find that I am already online and that I have been for 12 hours…which means that I would have had to have dialed up at 8pm the night before…but I was online all that time and I shut off my comp at 11pm…WTF is going on?
I sometimes have trouble convincing my computer to turn off - the power button on the front, for some reason, doesn’t always function. What causes this I have no clue.
But, I have a secret weapon against my computer - the power switch on the BACK of the case. Flip this switch, and the computer ain’t goin’ nowhere.
I sometimes have trouble convincing my computer to turn off - the power button on the front, for some reason, doesn’t always function. What causes this I have no clue.
But, I have a secret weapon against my computer - the power switch on the BACK of the case. Flip this switch, and the computer ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Mine has the same problem - oops undocumented feature - but, as my comp is pretty crappy and also old, I just assumed it was a purely “mechanical” if that is the word, fault, such as the switch not making the right contact.
It has been annoying though, as it sort of goes against the grain to switch off by pulling the plug out from the wall.
Oddly - yesterday, I got it to obey its off switch. Strange little creatures, they are.
Somebody told me that the Sobig virus can make your computer turn on & off by itself, but I just did search on the web and couldn’t find any discussion of such a thing.
Thought I’d pass that along anyway, though.
How’s your anti-virus protection?
BTW, I have my desktop, printer, monitor, et. al. plugged into a power strip sort of thing so that I can turn everything off at once by switching off the power box. The power switches they put into computer cases are notoriously wimpy.
It could be any number of things. My own computer, for instance, has two “power on/off” modes in the BIOS. With one mode (aka normal) one touch of the power button will immediatly turn off the computer. With the other mode you have to either shut it down through Windows or hold the power button in for a while (about ten to fifteen seconds).
Adding to the previous post… check your CMOS settings for a “Wake on LAN” option. If your Internet connection comes through a LAN card, there’s a good chance that that’s what’s causing the wake up after a power off. Set the option to “Disabled”.
I had the same issue. It only happens if I use the power button. These days I let the OS turn off my computer but if I’m in a hurry the “hold down for 5 seconds” works as well.
I believe it’s the actual switch. If I keep the button down, it stays off but when I release it, sometimes it turns back on.
It’s not the BIOS, and it’s not a virus.
What sucks is that I’m a computer tech and I don’t know what causes this! It could be the actual wire from the button to the MB. Maybe it’s in backwards.
I think it may be setup to just restart if you hit the power button without holding it down… that’s what mine does, and I just always hold it down when I want to shut down my computer that way… no problems for me.
I had a similar problem with my eMachine (yeah I know).
Turn it off, then in the middle of the night, it would turn on all by its lonesome. Kinda spooky. The eMachiine people told me it was a power supply problem in the box. They sent me a new one.
Sounds like you’re using Windows 98. Windows 98 has many problems with power management features. One of the most common is the computer failing to shut off and hanging at the ‘please wait while windows shuts down…’ message.
I’ve also seen several cases of what you describe – instead of powering off at the signal from Windows, the system decides a reboot is in order.
As was suggested earlier, you can force the system to power off by holding the power button down for 5-6 seconds. This overrides the OS and forces the mainboard to power off.
In addition to this, it sounds like your Internet settings are configured to automatically connect on demand. You can go into your Control Panel - Internet settings - Connections - set the option to ‘Never dial my default connection’. This will prevent your computer from dialing in by itself. You just have to do it manually instead.
Some of the other options were already covered – check your BIOS settings to make sure you don’t have any ‘wake up’ signals configured (on phone ring, on keyboard/mouse activity, etc. To prevent your system from powering up in any case, the switch on the back of your power supply (if it exists) is a good way. If that’s too incovenient, position your power bar within reach and use that. Always make sure to properly shut down windows before cutting power, of course
