My computer comes to life every night at midnight!

[mellondust]

I just upgraded my computer and everynight at 12am it turns on. It is right next to my bed and the first night scared me as I was just asleep and it all of a sudden turned on. I was like that was wierd, but it is still doing it. This is the first day I am actually remembering to try and figure it out becuase I have turned it off and gone back to sleep everytime and forgot until the next night.

Is it something in the new bios or what is causing it to turn on by its self? Where to I look for the turn off?

 

[bsobel]

Check your power settings in your bios, many have a wake up time. Also check your scheduled tasks with XP/Vista, some can have a 'wake the machine to perform this action' if your motherboard supports wake timers.

 

[Fardor]

"everynight at 12am it turns on"

lololololololololololololol funny

Please keep your neffing out of the support forums.
Anandtech Moderator - bsobeol

 

[PolymerTim]

Is it actually "shut down"/off or is it in a hibernate mode or something. I'm not sure how Windows could control anything if the computer is actually off. Wouldn't that take something at the hardware level? I'm thinking BIOS as well.

 

[Tsuwamono]

well if his motherboard supports it windows could update the bios to wake it.. basicly its a bridge.

 

[chusteczka]

Yes, it is a bios setting.

I am laughing at my memories from the first time this happened to me. I was a student, studying, late at night with a test the next morning, it was quiet, then out of nowhere this new 233MHz Compaq turns itself on. I thought maybe somebody was trying to hack into the computer so I disconnected the phone line from the modem and turned the machine off. The next night it happened again and I thought for sure that my computer had ghosts in it. I looked through everything I understood on that computer but could find nothing wrong. No trace of hackers, no lost files, the phone line was disconnected from the modem, nothing out of the ordinary. This went on for a few months until I ran across a knowledgeable friend who was kind enough to come over and change the bios setting and show me what was happening. I seriously thought that computer was haunted and considered returning it to Best Buy.

I can still imagine that scenario.
<me> I would like to return this computer.
<Best Buy Tech> Why, is there anything wrong with it?
<me> Yes, it is haunted and has ghosts.
<Best Buy Tech>
<me> Just take it and give me my money back!

That could have been the end of my career in computer science. I am surprised there have not been more stories about this feature.

 

[mellondust]

Thanks all! I found it in the bios, in a tab I would have normally never looked in. It was "event awake" or something like that, and it was enabled and set to a default time of 0:0:0. Disabled it and it stayed asleep all night long. And yes it was powered off/shut down, not in standby or power down mode.