Computer wakes up at night

[walter]

I have a 2 year old HP Compaq computer. It runs Win 7 64 bit. AMD dual
processor, 3 GB memory

Of late, after I put my computer in the sleep mode at night, my computer
wakes up in the middle of the night for 2 or 4 hours and then goes back to
sleep. When it wakes up, it just sits there with the monitor on, displaying
the desktop. There are no programs running on the taskbar.

If looked into the task manager, I find that no programs are running, but a
number of processes and services, all with small numbers. Memory shows 300
MB in use. Processor activity is 0 to 1 %. There are no spikes or
irregularities. It just sits there and sulks for a couple of hours.

The computer is out of warranty and am I not looking to HP for any great
revelations.

Did something like this happen to anyone?

Thanks

Walter

 

[sticks]

I have a 2 year old HP Compaq computer. It runs Win 7 64 bit. AMD dual
processor, 3 GB memory

Of late, after I put my computer in the sleep mode at night, my computer
wakes up in the middle of the night for 2 or 4 hours and then goes back
to sleep. When it wakes up, it just sits there with the monitor on,
displaying the desktop. There are no programs running on the taskbar.

If looked into the task manager, I find that no programs are running,
but a number of processes and services, all with small numbers. Memory
shows 300 MB in use. Processor activity is 0 to 1 %. There are no spikes
or irregularities. It just sits there and sulks for a couple of hours.

The computer is out of warranty and am I not looking to HP for any great
revelations.

Did something like this happen to anyone?

Thanks

Walter

Mouse?

 

[Ken Blake]

I have a 2 year old HP Compaq computer. It runs Win 7 64 bit. AMD dual
processor, 3 GB memory

Of late, after I put my computer in the sleep mode at night, my computer
wakes up in the middle of the night for 2 or 4 hours and then goes back to
sleep. When it wakes up, it just sits there with the monitor on, displaying
the desktop. There are no programs running on the taskbar.

If looked into the task manager, I find that no programs are running, but a
number of processes and services, all with small numbers. Memory shows 300
MB in use. Processor activity is 0 to 1 %. There are no spikes or
irregularities. It just sits there and sulks for a couple of hours.

The computer is out of warranty and am I not looking to HP for any great
revelations.

Did something like this happen to anyone?

Check in the BIOS to make sure that the settings for "Wake on modem"
or Wake on anything else are not set.

 

[BillW50]

I have a 2 year old HP Compaq computer. It runs Win 7 64 bit. AMD dual
processor, 3 GB memory

Of late, after I put my computer in the sleep mode at night, my computer
wakes up in the middle of the night for 2 or 4 hours and then goes back
to sleep. When it wakes up, it just sits there with the monitor on,
displaying the desktop. There are no programs running on the taskbar.

If looked into the task manager, I find that no programs are running,
but a number of processes and services, all with small numbers. Memory
shows 300 MB in use. Processor activity is 0 to 1 %. There are no spikes
or irregularities. It just sits there and sulks for a couple of hours.

The computer is out of warranty and am I not looking to HP for any great
revelations.

Did something like this happen to anyone?

Thanks

Walter

Is this a real desktop or a laptop being used as a desktop? If this is a
real desktop, easy thing is to put it into hibernation and use a power
strip with a switch to kill the power. It will never wake up now.

Using shut down instead of standby or hibernation will sometimes prevent
the computer from self powering up. It depends on the hardware.

Ah... now the tricky stuff. Finding out what is waking it up. Key press
or mouse movement can do it. But more on this later.

 

[Robin Bignall]

Check in the BIOS to make sure that the settings for "Wake on modem"
or Wake on anything else are not set.

Also check device manager for devices that have power options (look at
properties) and turn off all the ones that can wake the computer up.

 

[charlie]

I have a 2 year old HP Compaq computer. It runs Win 7 64 bit. AMD dual
processor, 3 GB memory

Of late, after I put my computer in the sleep mode at night, my computer
wakes up in the middle of the night for 2 or 4 hours and then goes back
to sleep. When it wakes up, it just sits there with the monitor on,
displaying the desktop. There are no programs running on the taskbar.

If looked into the task manager, I find that no programs are running,
but a number of processes and services, all with small numbers. Memory
shows 300 MB in use. Processor activity is 0 to 1 %. There are no spikes
or irregularities. It just sits there and sulks for a couple of hours.

The computer is out of warranty and am I not looking to HP for any great
revelations.

Did something like this happen to anyone?

Thanks

Walter

Worst case is big brother firing it up to see what there is to see! <G>

It's usually something that others have already mentioned in the thread.

 

[Allen Drake]

Worst case is big brother firing it up to see what there is to see! <G>

It's usually something that others have already mentioned in the thread.

It needs decaf.

 

[Alf]

In reply to "Allen Drake" who wrote the following:

It needs decaf.

Mine did the exact same thing. I did a little Internet research and, concerned
that it might be malware, I tried several methods which didn't seem to work. One
suggestion was to resort to the old DOS chkdsk program (which still exists, even
if hidden, in Windows 7) which I did, and the problem has not recurred for about
two months now. It took 2-3 hours to run on my machine, so if you try it make
sure you have time to let it finish.

At the Windows start prompt type: cmd (enter)

At the DOS command prompt type: chkdsk /f /r (enter)

If you're not old enough to have used DOS, just search "chkdsk" and you will
find out what it does and doesn't do.

I don't think that you have anything to lose other than a few hours.

Good luck.

Alf

 

[Bob I]

In reply to "Allen Drake" who wrote the following:


Mine did the exact same thing. I did a little Internet research and, concerned
that it might be malware, I tried several methods which didn't seem to work. One
suggestion was to resort to the old DOS chkdsk program (which still exists, even
if hidden, in Windows 7) which I did, and the problem has not recurred for about
two months now. It took 2-3 hours to run on my machine, so if you try it make
sure you have time to let it finish.

At the Windows start prompt type: cmd (enter)

At the DOS command prompt type: chkdsk /f /r (enter)

If you're not old enough to have used DOS, just search "chkdsk" and you will
find out what it does and doesn't do.

I don't think that you have anything to lose other than a few hours.

"chkdsk" is still found in the same place it was before.

R-click on the drive letter, click properties, it will be found on the
Tools tab, click Check Now and answer in the affirmative...

 

[charlie]

"chkdsk" is still found in the same place it was before.

R-click on the drive letter, click properties, it will be found on the
Tools tab, click Check Now and answer in the affirmative...

It's interesting that nothing is running, and there is a blank screen.
This was a and old symptom of BIOS related "issues" on HP some laptops.
The scenario was that the power save settings in the BIOS and ops
system, compounded by such things as the lan card did not work well with
each other. The question of what started the return from standby
was originally resolved by turning everything off that might have caused
the event. This included BIOS settings that were able to start the
computer from BIOS at a given time.
In one instance, we ended up putting a trackball in a soft foam wrapper,
since it was one of the things that the user wanted to use to cause the
computer to startup.