Phantom Start Up Of Desktop.

[Kidorry 189]

Never mind the silly title. When my wife starts her desktop in the morning, which is in another room, the desktop not the morning, sometimes it turns mine on as well. We turn off the desktops in the morning and then my wife sometimes turns hers on later in the day but mine then does not always turn on. The desktops are both hard wired to the same router, could that be the problem although it never happened with the last desktop my wife had and it was wired the same way. Has anyone got any idea how this is happening?

[Ghozer 112]

That's interesting...

There are a couple of possibilities, the first of which I would check would be "Wake On Lan" - it's usually a setting located in the BIOS,

Another option,  could also be in the BIOS, although it's less likely, it could be "Restore on AC power loss" - this setting has various options, and one of which is if it detects the mains power is disconnected, then reconnected, it will turn on/start up the machine as soon as the power is reconnected... this is less likely, as you said they are in different rooms - I could see it if they were connected to the same socket/extension and this got turned off daily, but not in different rooms really..

depending on your ability/knowledge level though, you may not know how to deal with the BIOS though, so let us know...

There's nothing else I can think of that could cause this, at the moment.... but will mull over it for a while

 

[Kidorry 189]

Cheers Ghozer for that. I would not be comfortable going intp the BIOS. It is not a problem really it was because it has never happened to me before. On reflection it seems to have only started since I changed broadband providers. Could that have something to do with it?

[Albert the Cat 0]

On 24/04/2020 at 20:14, Kidorry said:

Cheers Ghozer for that. I would not be comfortable going intp the BIOS. It is not a problem really it was because it has never happened to me before. On reflection it seems to have only started since I changed broadband providers. Could that have something to do with it?

The bios is not scary at all. If it is a fairly modern PC, the interface is a full GUI which you can even use with a mouse. 

 

Like Ghozer said, my first instinct was wake on lan by a magic packet. 

[Kidorry 189]

Do I get to BIOS by pressing F12 on start up because I have just restarted my desktop and nothing came up on the screen to tell me which key to press for the BIOS.

[Ghozer 112]

It's Usually DEL or F2

I have known F12 on rare(r) occasions, and usually on older machines!

[Kidorry 189]

I have just noticed on start up the welcome page is in the name of my wife's desktop. I will try both of your options when I restart my machine next time. Cheers.

[Kidorry 189]

I got into the BIOS and turned the wake on lan  to "stay off". It was F2 on my machine and much easier than I thought.

[Kidorry 189]

I have had no phantom start ups since I did what you suggested, so, it is thank you very much for the information.

[Ghozer 112]

2 hours ago, Kidorry said:

I have had no phantom start ups since I did what you suggested, so, it is thank you very much for the information.

Glad to hear it..

Keep an eye on it, if there's no more i'd say issue resolved,

if not - it could only be part of a greater puzzle

[swarfendor437 14]

Might be worth setting a BIOS password (not System Password) on so the setting doesn't get lost. Is the clock keeping time? If your system get's it's time from the internet change it to local - could be a failing CMOS battery and BIOS dropping to defaults. Or something completely different!

[Kidorry 189]

Everything is working fine and I have had no more phantom starts since I went into the BIOS. Cheers.