Tech: auto rebooting?

Subject: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: Gurney
Date: 04 May 07 - 05:59 PM

My son had some trouble with his P4 2.8Ghz XP computer. It turned out to be software, but has left him with an 'interesting' situation.

When the computer is shut down but not switched off at the wall, a phone call or modem connection, in or out, will boot up his computer.

   This only happens when the unit has NOT been switched off at the socket since shutdown. If it has been, and the power reconnected, it behaves normally and waits until the boot button is pressed.

I wondered if there might be a hackers virus that does this, (suspicious, aren't I,) or it may be that he altered something in the BIOS when he was looking at the original problem,
although he says definitely not.

Ideas gratefully received. He's putting the virus-killer through it at the moment.   Chris.

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 May 07 - 06:10 PM

What was his original problem, and what did he do to fix it?

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 May 07 - 06:21 PM

A virus is extremely unlikely. There may be a "Wake on [something-or-other]" setting switched on in the BIOS. I disabled "Wake on LAN" on my own machine, and "Wake on USB" on my parents' when their printer wouldn't let them turn the computer off.

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 May 07 - 06:25 PM

Darnit. I was hoping you meant 'auto' as in automobile.....for some reason my car had a nervous breakdown and we more or less had to reboot by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery. NOBODY has an idea about why.

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: terrier
Date: 04 May 07 - 08:25 PM

Sorcha, computers have problems and automobiles have problems but when you have an automobile controlled by a computer...

Where's my sonic screwdriver?

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 04 May 07 - 11:01 PM

Throw the breaker for six hours a day.

Purchase some candles

Give the child a book.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 May 07 - 11:09 PM

If he's using WinXP, he should be signed up for automatic Critical updates to WinXP.

If he has any AntiVirus installed he should be signed up for automatic updates at least of AV signatures.

If the computer is turned on, i.e. is connected to power, even if it's in a sleep or hibernate mode, a scheduling program on his computer probably will be able to "wake up" the computer to check for and receive updates. A "calling home for updates" is one of the fairly frequent causes for a "new connection dial-up" or other network connection when you don't expect one. The "boot" or "re-boot" you're seeing may be part of a normal wakeup, or it may be from the occasional downloads that require a reboot to complete installation of new patches.

In other words, it may be "perfectly normal" even if it does seem the computer has become psychotic, deranged, possessed, or is behaving like a wandering spouse.

With newer "green" computers, the status of "on," "off," "sleeping," and/or "hibernating" are sometimes quite vague (and not all machines use exactly those terms).

Most recent model computers do not have an on/off switch that physically turns off the connection to power. The switch merely tells logic on the machine to act like it's on or off. Provided that the computer itself doesn't have a hard-wired on/off switch, and that it does have "green-capable" BIOS and chipset, WinXP can supply the tricks and gimmicks to use the available "states" that the machine can placed in.

The first place you probably should look is at Start | Settings | Control Panel (or Start | Control Panel if you're set up that way). Find the "Power Options" entry in Control Panel, double click it, and try to figure out exactly what "state" the computer is going to when it appears to have "turned itself off."

Terminology often is "tailored" by the original machine maker, and/or by the BIOS, so it's difficult to say just what to look for; but once you're in there, you probably can figure out at least a little more about what's happening, and whether a nefarious activity should be suspected.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: auto rebooting?
From: Gurney
Date: 05 May 07 - 04:03 AM

Sage, he took it to the people who built it. They said it was a software problem and did a go-back, which he couldn't find a way to do from blue-screen.

Malcolm, we've had a look in the BIOS, but nothing pokes your eye out. Pretty cryptic annotations, and not much enabled.

Sorcha, when they work, they work well. When they don't..... I used to be able to fix anything on a car, but not now.

Gargoyle, we do on my computer, we do stock candles, and he isn't a child. The reason he gave up trying is that he had a weekend's worth of university stuff that he hadn't saved elsewhere. Some people learn slowly. He's quite capable and ready to format a HD and equipped to do it with Seagate Tools. Just not then.

John, he is signed up and it updates when he's on the web. C.A. VKiller updates automatically ditto. The machine is about a year old, but not an upmarket model, and was assembled by a small firm of suppliers. It does have a switch on the power unit. The makers technician said it was probably the 'phone that triggered it, and he was right, I checked, 'phone in, 'phone out, internet out. But as I implied to Malcolm, the BIOS options are just acronyms. He'll take on the other suggestions when he reads them. They are printed out.
Thank you all.