Wake from sleep to do a virus scan?

I am usung Win 7 pro 64 bit. I have Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) installed as my anti-virus software. I'd like to schedule a daily virus scan at 3am. I set up MSE to do this in the options. The problem is is that the computer is asleep at 3am and I don't think it is waking from sleep (and even if it does wake, it needs a logon password).

Anyway, I'd like to configure the system so that the computer is woken up by the scheduled virus scan, performs the scan, and then goes back to sleep. I assume that I will need to use Task Manager to do this but I have looked at it and I don't understand how to set it up. Do I need to know the .exe name of the actual scan process?

Also, I'd like to make it so that the scheduled virus scan is what wakes up the computer... I don't want to just set the task manager to "wake up at 3am".

Finally, SOMETHING is waking up my computer every morning at 3am. The last three mornings I have noticed the light from my monitor and when I go out into the office, the win 7 logon screen is on.... is some process trying to run but is being prevented from doing so because the computer is set to ask for logon after waking up from sleep? Once again, I have checked out task manager and there seems to be nothing there. Any ideas what this might be? I am very unfamiliar with task manager so detailed instructions would be helpful.

Thanks,
Brian

What exactly is that doing? Is network traffic waking up my computer?

OK. So the network card trick worked but this begs the question:

Why was my network card waking my system?

I looked through the task scheduler (last 7 days of activity) and found the events that happened at 3:00am and NONE of the were set to "wake computer from sleep".

I am guessing that some process was trying to reach out to the internet and when it accessed my network card my network card was waking up the system. The question is, what process was causing this to happen? Windows update? Or was the MSE virus scan set at 3am causing the network card to wake up the system?

Also, I noticed that when I diasbled the "wake system" option from the network card it had an option to "allow only magic packets" to wake the system.... what the hell are magic packets?

Finally, by disabling the "wake" option on my network card will it dissalow me from accessing my system using remote desktop when my system is sleeping? If so, what I would really like to do is re-enable the "wake from network card" ability and find out what process was actually waking the system and configure that to not do so.

Thanks,
Brian

bump

Hello. Well have you got Windows Update to accept automatic updates, if so, mine is scheduled to work at 3am
maybe that is the culprit if you have, go in and change the time for it to update.

I did have windows update set to update at 3am... there was no task fo it in the task scheduler though.... I went through eah entry in the task scheduler and NOTHING was set to "wake from sleep". Unless Windows Updater doesn't show up in task scheduler for some reason.... that would explain it I guess. Does anyone know?

Are you connected to like a corporate network? Maybe the system administrator runs some checks or something every night at 3AM?

Did you find a way to set MSE's scheduled virus scan? Task Scheduler-Task Scheduler Library (left-hand pane)-Microsoft-Microsoft Antimalware.

Should be one event in there. Right-click, properties, triggers, double-click the file there or hit edit, and change the time there.

If you don't have that event in Microsoft Antimalware or even that folder: reinstall MSE or I can give you event settings, as there are some arguments you have to add to just the scan executable.

I found the MSE item in the task manager. I had to uncheck on of the options in MSE for it to be visible. No, this is a home network, not work. I do have an iMac hooked up to the router.... maybe that was accesssing the router which was waking up my windows box? This is weird because I eventually want to reenable the network card to wake the system from sleep so I can remote desktop into the box when it is sleeping.... however I don't want the thing waking up everynight at 3am for a "Mystery Reason".