Computer turned itself on last night

TinCool · 01-10-2003 10:01am #1

Not sure if this is the best place to post this but here it goes. The wierdest thing. My PC turned itself on last night all by itself. Naturally I turned it straight off and have gone as far as unplugging the rj45 cable between my PC and router. Now, I have nothing scheduled that would cause it to to turn on. The only thing I can think of is that I recently opened up a couple of ports on my dsl router and firewall. Does anyone know if there's any kind of hacking or port scanning that could force a computer to turn on ? Very strange. May be judgement day is coming.

A paranoid TC.

BoB_BoT · 01-10-2003 10:13am

might very well be, not an expert on this but don't mainboards have the option to be powered on by lan? disable it in your bios just to be sure, someone might have better info on this. Try closing the ports on your comp and see if it happens again.
gl,
Rob

scojones · 01-10-2003 10:14am

Someone using X10 for fun and profit?

koneko · 01-10-2003 10:26am

Wake On Modem and Wake On LAN should be turned off.

str8_away · 01-10-2003 10:27am

TinCool:
Can you explain more on how the computer turned itself on?
When was it's last shutdown and how you discover it been turned on. What OS is it running on?

It just that sometime when I finish using my computer I just click shutdown, turn off monitor and walk out of room. But for some reason the computer performed Restart instead of Shutdown. Could this be the case?

Giblet · 01-10-2003 11:44am

Could of been a power outage, and when the power came on, the PC could of come on with it.
Used to happen to my old PC if you didn't switch off the main PSU switch, just the front one.

Chowley · 01-10-2003 1:16pm

Come on it must have been a ghost or something, really like.

PrecariousNuts · 01-10-2003 1:28pm

Wake Up Neo...

TinCool · 01-10-2003 2:07pm

Originally posted by str8_away
TinCool:
Can you explain more on how the computer turned itself on?
When was it's last shutdown and how you discover it been turned on. What OS is it running on?

It just that sometime when I finish using my computer I just click shutdown, turn off monitor and walk out of room. But for some reason the computer performed Restart instead of Shutdown. Could this be the case?

This also does happen to me where I shutdown and it reboots instead. Although this definitely wasn't the case. I'm running WinXP Pro. I had shut it down at about 10pm and at around 5am it turned itself on. How do I know this, cause the fan turned on which woke me up. I'll check out if there's any of those wake up settings in my bios, but again I doubt that that has anything to do with it. The PC has been connected to the dsl router (dlink 504), for the past 3 months and this is the first time that something like this has happened.

lotas · 02-10-2003 3:30am

stupid question, but why do you turn your machine off? like i havent turned my box off in a while. takes a few nights to get used to being on, but after 3 years, im now grand. 2 machine on 24/7 (workstation and server). that will solve the problem with it turning on at night. only thing is when it turns off, and you cant figure out why!

GUI · 03-10-2003 12:11am

TC
disable wake on lan in bios
and in device manager, ur network adapter power management settings..
turn off wake on lan and magic packet

no atx mobo is completely powered off, part of ACPI specification, back in 99 , one of those specs anyways.

Redshift · 03-10-2003 3:10am

I had a compaq machine a couple of years ago that used to do this as soon as you plugged it in. you always knew if there was a powercut while you were out as the machine would be on when you came back I think there was an option to disable it in the bios.

Tivoli · 03-10-2003 3:57am

my packard bell pc started to turn on at night time all by itself, only happened when i was alone in the house, it started just after my neighbour died, did it for about a month, very wierd, as i didn't have the wake on lan on or the resume after power failure ect, best to just try to forget about it,by doing even more drugs

John Player · 03-10-2003 4:24am

maybe you should lay off the drugs or at least talk to a doctor about what you think you saw

Tivoli · 03-10-2003 7:35pm

stupid question, but why do you turn your machine off

energy awareness????

Capt'n Midnight · 03-10-2003 7:54pm

I hate ATX power supplies - give me a good old AT PSU with a real ON / OFF switch - when it's on it on and when it's off it stays off.

Depending on the BIOS you can set a wakeup alarm - Optiplexes used to have a very nice feature where you could tell them to power on at a certain time but from monday to friday only. (Still can't find an alarm clock that gives me a lie in at weekends)

eg: A spike from the Electricity could turn it on.

But with ATX it's never off - it is only in standby waiting for any excuse to power on. - Some can be triggered by keyboard or mouse or modem - or disconnecting the monitor.

(Note since the switch on an AT disconnects it from the mains it's less likely to be damaged by a spike when turned off..)

dazberry · 03-10-2003 8:25pm

lotus
I don't know how you do it. I can't stand the noise in the sleep state. Perhaps good if you had tinitus, by my server is down in the hall. The cats outside screaming the other night that woke me a 4am (couldn't get back to sleep

) is another story - at least I was early for work for a change

.

[RE: WOL]
Wake on Lan requires a formatted packet (which includes the network card's MAC address repeated 16 times) sent via UDP as a broadcast (google AMD magic packet). Firstly because its a UDP broadcast it couldn't have got on to the local subnet (unless it was sent from that subset) and secondly I can't imagine someone knowing the MAC address of the machine.

[ATX]
Capt'n Midnight is right here - gimme a flip on/off switch (preferrably big and red and clicky) and my first guess is this could have been it. Even if its not set (the machine may have gotten confused if there was a spike), check the Restore On AC Power Loss (or similar) setting in the BIOS - should be under Power Management. Make sure its Power Off.

D.

Cake Fiend · 03-10-2003 8:30pm

I've had a mistrust of AT PSUs ever since I shocked myself with one 'fixing' a friend's computer while drunk

Capt'n Midnight · 03-10-2003 8:44pm

secondly I can't imagine someone knowing the MAC address of the machine.

Technically possible - but not likely - eg: if someone hacked the router they'd have it's MAC list. or if you had a virus/trojan on your machine sending out such details.

Working on machines - in the UK all wall sockets have to have on/off switches (I changed mine at home) - other trick if you have an extension lead or double adaptor is to unplug the pc , turn the plug through 180 and just plug the earth pin in - leaving the live and neutral not connected to the ESB. PC is now earthed and should be no power on the system (of course watch out for the UPS and not sure if monitors wrt earth leakage etc.)

red_ice · 03-10-2003 8:54pm

yea, i get this alot in work, its usually something like a screw on the mainboard or a lose PWRSW. Have a look and see if the pwrsw is on right. Take it out then see if there is anything cought in between the leads.

Computer turned itself on last night

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