Monitors turn on in the middle of the night

Ok. So about a month ago, I upgraded my IBM M51 from XP to 7, and everything has been pretty flawless... except one thing. It seems to enjoy switching on both my monitors from standby at random times, especially in the early hours of the morning, while I am trying to get some rest. This was never a problem with XP or Linux, even after upgrading my graphics card, a Radeon HD 2600. Has anyone ever had this problem before?

The reason I don't actually turn them off is because my older CRT is, well, old and gonna bite the dust sooner or later, and has a lot of trouble turning itself back on from a cold start. Yes, this is stupid and I should get a new one, but with pretty much no income it's hard. I would put my rig into standby, but it has this thing about BSODing when it resumes. I don't have a problem with just leaving it running all night, as long as it lets me sleep.

The worst part is that my secondary monitor makes the most annoying clicking sounds as it turns on, followed by the light of both of them. I have a little taskbar button that shuts them back off, but by then I'm wide awake. Anything will be appreciated. :)

Could it be the 3AM wakeup that is performed (by default, unless you disable it) to "automatically (recommended)" get Windows Updates and apply them?

Control Panel -> System -> Windows Update -> Change settings

This will automatically wake up the machine every day at 3AM even though you've put it into "hibernation" the night before when you went to sleep.

This will also trigger an automatic re-boot of your computer if necessary to complete the application of Windows Update.

I don't know why this would bring your monitor out of standby at the same time, but it might certainly do that as well.

Anyway, try disabling these "automatic 3AM updates".

How about Windows Media Center? It, too, has an "enable updates" option...

Tasks -> Settings -> General -> Automatic download options

Or it may not be a Win 7 issue at all and you guys are over looking the painfully obvious.. His house could be Hunted.

Er.. sorry.. Had to do it.

Go to Device Manager > Network Adaptors > double click twice > Power Management > untick "Allow this device to wake up the computer".

clone4crw said:

Well, I've disabled the mouse and network adapters from waking the system, and it hasn't done anything in the middle of the night since.

I had previously disabled my mouse from waking the system, as I prefer to just hit the space bar on my keyboard as the only thing to wake it up from hibernation.

But un-checking the network adapter from entering power-save (which also grays out the "allow wake-up" item) does seem to have done the trick for me as well! Last night it did not wake up at 3AM.

So... WHS... many thanks for the suggestion.