Windows 10 computer turns itself ON

fsinclaire · 29 Sep 2019

I have a new-to-me refurbished (from Amazon) Dell Optiplex 9020 desktop with Windows 10. Attached to it are a Dell SE2719H monitor, Logitech Trackball, Brother Laser Printer, and Linksys Router. Everything seems to work fine, except ...

In the evening, I turn it OFF at START>Power>Shut Off; the light at the ON/OFF power button at the front top left of the computer itself goes off (disappears). I do not turn off the monitor; when the computer is turned off, the screen displays "No VGA device is detected", and goes black.

Then, in the morning, the computer is ON. At some point during the night, the computer turns itself back on. How, why, does it do that? (I assume ... correctly? ... a monitor does not have the capability to turn a computer itself on.)

A Google search yielded a suggestion that it may be the mouse (which in my case is the Logitech Trackball). So, as suggested there, at START>Device Manager>Mice and other pointing devices>HID compliant mouse>Power management, I unchecked "Allow this device to wake the computer" (even though I don't know what an "HID compliant mouse" is). That evening, I turned the computer off at START>Power>Shut Off; in the morning, it was ON.

Other than unplugging the computer from the wall in the evening, I don't know what to do. I will appreciate any thoughts!

Brink · 29 Sep 2019

Hello fsinclaire,

You can check you wake source logs in Event Viewer to see if they may be able to ID the culprit.

See Wake Source in Windows 10

fsinclaire · 29 Sep 2019

Brink, Thank you. Tomorrow, I will check that ... and report back here.

Megahertz · 29 Sep 2019

See in BIOS options if you have WOL (Wake On Lan) and if it's set to disable.

fsinclaire · 30 Sep 2019

Megaherz, "Disabled' is checked.

Brink, Attached are two screen grabs from the Event Viewer display showing the time the computer turned on this morning.

The computer was turned OFF in the evening. At the suggestion of a Google yield, I had turned off "Fast Start" earlier in the afternoon so presumably Shut Down last evening actually did shut it down. As you can see, the computer turned itself ON at about 3:00 AM (the bright screen woke me up).

The inevitable question: I purchased this computer from Amazon only a few days ago. Would it make sense for me to return it? That is, is this issue (Windows 10 turning itself ON in the middle of the night) a "normal" problem for this OS, something often encountered in new devices, or is it extraordinary, and not likely to be encountered again? Is this possibly something generated by the company that refurbished this computer when they installed Windows 10 ... a toggle switch they forgot to turn off?

Thank you both for your help.

- - - Updated - - -

Brink and Megaherz, While I was fussing with the previous post, it turns out my wife was in contact with Amazon. The free replacement is in train ... and will arrive day after tomorrow. So we can ignore the two screen grabs which I will leave on here just in case either of you is interested.

So, again, thank you both. Hopefully the replacement will be free of this issue

1

sgage · 30 Sep 2019

The strange thing is that you had clearly turned the computer OFF. It was not in a sleep state such that wake on lan or whatever should be able to wake it up. I've had things wake my computer from sleep before, but never from the OFF state. Hopefully your replacement unit will behave better...

Brink · 30 Sep 2019

I've had my network adapter wake my desktop system from a full shutdown before until I disabled it.

I hope the replacement will not have this issue.

fsinclaire · 30 Sep 2019

sgage and others,

Preparing the computer for returning to Amazon, I deleted the few files we had created in the few days we have had this computer. We had not yet installed or created any important data, but I just wanted to return it as it arrived.

Anyway, ten minutes (really, no more than ten minutes) after I was done deleting files and emptying the Recycle Bin, I received an email from "no-reply@onedrive.com" that contained the following text (I have deleted my email address, etc.):

We noticed that you recently deleted a large number of files from your OneDrive.

When files are deleted, they are moved to your OneDrive recycle bin. If you don't restore deleted files from the OneDrive recycle bin, they are permanently deleted after 30 days.

If you want to restore these files, go to the OneDrive recycle bin, select what you want to restore, and click the Restore button.

You can ignore this mail if you meant to get rid of these files.

Now, I do not know what "your OneDrive" means. I had installed two programs (apps): MS Word and Mozilla Firefox. I deleted both of those at Control Panel>Programs>Uninstall a program. Also, I created several Word files which I saved to C:/Documents. I deleted those (right click>delete), and then emptied the Recycle Bin on the Desktop (Right click>Empty the Recycle Bin>Are you sure ...>Yes) .

Is what we used to call the hard disk (C:) now called OneDrive? Is OneDrive something else? Where is it? Redmond? Dubai? Moscow? Is my every move really being tracked and reported to ... whom? Who, precisely, is the "we" in "We noticed that you recently deleted ..."?

It's weird.