kungfooya Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 I've been having a weird problem lately and I'm not sure if it has anything to do with linux or not. About a month or 2 ago I put mandrake 9.2 on my machine as a dual boot with windows 2000. For the last few weeks my machine will randomly turn itself on. I'll wake up in the morning, come home from work and it will just be on. I've never heard of this happening, and I'm a little confused as what causing it. Could this be a power strip problem? A power problem with my machine? Does it have anything to do with the OS'? Any ideas? Also, I had a corrupted windows 2000 last night and had to reinstall it fresh, and the machine still turns itself on. Here are my machine specsa: Windows 2000 sp3/Mandrake 9.2 dual boot Athlon 2200 512 mb RAM 350w power supply msi kt-3 ultra kt333 motherboard 512mb pc2700 RAM 60gig ATA HD Thanks for any info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 (edited) I had a failing psu and surge protector that caused that.....but they were causing other things and I replaced them quickly so it only hapened once. In other words....are you having power surges? Aside from that, look in the bios for a 'Wake on LAN' option and see if it's enabled. btw, someone at work mention it happen to them a few times, and other weird things have been happening as well, like car alarms being set off all day for days, then fine for weeks and then doing it again. Edited April 22, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Power supply, case switch, cpu fan. Check them in any order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris z Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 here's what might sound like a far fetched solution, but it solved the same problem for me once.......... power down the computer as you normally would. once it's shut down, turn off the power with the switch on the computer power supply. unplug the computer from it's power source. let it that way for a half hour or so. plug everything back in, turn on the power, then start using your computer as you normally would. don't know why, but that solved the very same problem for me. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plati Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Ive had this problem before, turned out to be my Wake on LAN feature in the BIOS. Something was sending requests or something to my computer, which caused it to bootup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfooya Posted April 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm picking up a new power strip today and will check out the bios settings as well. Hopefully this will be cleared up tonight. Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ac_dispatcher Posted April 23, 2004 Report Share Posted April 23, 2004 (edited) I had the same problem. It was what plati advised. I had the "wan on Lan" option on in my bios. Also my computer would randomly turn off until I stopped "acpid" services. Edited April 23, 2004 by ac_dispatcher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted April 24, 2004 Report Share Posted April 24, 2004 Aside from that, look in the bios for a 'Wake on LAN' option and see if it's enabled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfooya Posted April 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2004 It looks like the prblem has been corrected. I changed my bios settings as suggested and bought a heavy duty surge protector and so far so good. I'm still baffled why this would start happening after +1.5 years....oh well. thanks again for all the info. Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 25, 2004 Report Share Posted April 25, 2004 If it comes back, try leaving it on, but disconnect from the internet (just guessing you are always on). See if it still happens... just a hunch.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neocytrix Posted April 25, 2004 Report Share Posted April 25, 2004 If it comes back, try leaving it on, but disconnect from the internet (just guessing you are always on). See if it still happens... just a hunch.. Thats also what I would do, I have heard that its actually better for the computer because bootup is the hardest time for the computer, I don't know if thats true for sure, but I have never had a problem with leaving it on, and unless you can't for some reason, I would start to leave it on at night and just reboot it once a day. -Neocytrix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted April 26, 2004 Report Share Posted April 26, 2004 That business of not stressing your computer by turning it off and on was based on fact as was also the original idea of using screensavers. With the earlier phospher coatings on monitor screens, you could get a semi permanent and sometimes permanent ghosting on your screen by burn-in if parts of the screen were subjected to very long durations of non moving but bright images. Screen savers helped to prevent this problem by starting a moving image if the screen was inactive of movement for any length of time. With the improvements in Phospher technology this is no longer a real issue anymore and screensavers now serve a different purpose, namey saving boredom from an inactive screen imagery and also for entertainment. The Power on/off thing originated from the fact that when a computer was running then naturally everything heated up, and this included components and their solder connections. The components and the solders had different thermal expansion characteristics, that is they expanded at different rates and therefore also cooled at different rates. As a result, the solder connection would eventually stress and over time become what is called a "dry" joint, meaning it acted as if it wasn't soldered but mechanicaly still held the component in place. Majority of the times it would be a Resistor connection because they tend to get vey hot relative to their size. If a solder connection was not done correctly in the first place ( in early days all solder connections were manually done) then this could also happen at this point. Nowadays the technology of solder and robotic soldering has all but wiped out this phenomena. Today the main issue is about saving electrical energy. Assuming we use our computer just 8hrs in a day but running it full time. we are WASTING almost half of its energy consumption even if we use standy techniques etc or 2 thirds of its energy consumption if we do not use any saving routines. One final point. It is not necessary to reboot any LINUX, let alone Mandrake, daily or at any other regular interval. You gain nothing from it. Only Windows seems to benefit from this idea but really only if it is actively used a great deal. Anyway if you decide to become energy saving conscious and turn your computer off when you are not actually using it then you are going to be regularly rebooting anyhow. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 26, 2004 Report Share Posted April 26, 2004 If it comes back, try leaving it on, but disconnect from the internet (just guessing you are always on). See if it still happens... just a hunch.. Reason I brought this up is because if its unconnected and stops the behavior then the cause may be remote (as in someone else!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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