Unusual, Unprompted Wake-ups

[pretzelkins]

Hello, I've been perusing the forums and have gotten some great info for my transition from XP to Windows 7 but am having what seems to be a unique problem, hence this thread.

Since installing Windows 7 (64) on a fresh new HD my computer's been waking itself up from sleep mode fairly often (every hour or two, maybe). I've gone through all the other threads on this subject and tried most of the fixes I found (disallowing ethernet wake-ups e.g.) to no avail. What's particularly disconcerting about these wake-ups is they produce a strange 'clunk' sound and my power LED flashes. The cmd window tells me my keyboard is the device waking the machine up but I don't know if I believe it.

Does anyone have any inkling as to what this might be? I'm suspicious of my floppy drive (yeah, I know) as it makes similar sounding grumblings on start-up. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Go into Device Manager and right-click on you network adapter. Hit Properties, and go to the Power Management tab. Uncheck the box "Allow this device to wake the computer".

 

[richc46]

Try going to power options. Advanced settings, choose do not wake. Lets see what happens.

 

[Brink]

Hello Pretzelkins, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might also see if this may be able to help you find out what is waking up your computer.

Power Options and Sleep Mode Problems - Vista Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[pretzelkins]

Jonathan and Rich, thanks but those were both among the fixes I've already tried.

Thanks for the FAQ Brink, I'll give it a gander when (or if) I get my homework done tonight.

-Sam

 

[Frostmourne]

Disable power options in your BIOS. This will stop devices such as keyboard or something else waking up the PC.

 

[pretzelkins]

Thanks Frostmourne, I'll try that. I'll still be able to wake it up with a keystroke when I want to though, right? Also, I just want to note that the 'clunk' sound I hear during these wake-ups doesn't happen when I manually wake the computer up with a mouse wiggle or keystroke.

 

[Frostmourne]

This depends on your motherboard - it should have a number of options, such as S3 sleep, along with wake options.

 

[pretzelkins]

I looked at my BIOS and all devices were disabled under the power tab. Going through Brink's FAQ now.

 

[Zidane24]

Did you do the usual updating of chipset and video drivers along with your ethernet drivers when you installed the OS

 

[engin33r]

just maybe a fault with the ACPI driver.

Try looking for a newer driver, or if you have updated the driver, try rolling back.

~Mike

 

[pretzelkins]

All but the ethernet drivers. I'll try that, thanks.

 

[nate42nd]

It also may be this:

A program or scheduled task might be waking your computer. By default, Power Option settings do not allow scheduled tasks to wake the computer from sleep or hibernate. However, some programs might awaken the computer if these settings have been changed.

To prevent programs from waking your computer

Open Power Options by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, and then clicking Power Options.

On the Select a power plan page, click Change plan settings for the plan that you want to change.

On the Change settings for the plan page, click Change advanced power settings.

On the Advanced settings tab, expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, choose Disable for both when your computer is running on battery and when it's plugged in, and then click OK.

 

[pretzelkins]

Nate, thanks but I tried switching all the power options to the recommended settings for people with wake-up problems. Like I said, I did some reading and went through all the common remedies. I think I have some kind of exceptional issue here.

Engineer, I'll look into the ACPI drivers.

I'm slowly going through Brink's guide by process of elimination but it's exam time so I'm not very far along. Hopefully I can figure it out this weekend.

 

[pretzelkins]

Update: The "clunk" my computer makes as it wakes, upon closer inspection, is more like a rhythm of various clunking sounds that lasts about 5 seconds!

Nothing is working so far. What in the &*%^ could this be? I happens once every hour after I stop using the computer. I'm on a brand new HD which, according to seatools, is in fine order. Very strange and annoying. I'm going back to XP for the time being since this is one of only several Windows 7 frustrations. Good thing I only paid 30 bucks for it. Every time I get a new MS O/S it takes months and countless hours on forums to get it working properly.

 

[Frostmourne]

Can you try the hard drive in a different pc?

 

[dave1812]

I turn OFF the mouse's ability to wake up my computers because the most infinitesimal movement of the mouse will wake up the computer. Go to Device Manager, select the Mouse>Properties>Power Management, and uncheck the pertinent box.

 

[pretzelkins]

Hmmm, my mouse is set to like 1600 dpi. Still, the sounds indicate something more serious.

 

[pretzelkins]

Ok, this definitely has something to do with my hard drive. I unplugged everything except for my W7 HDD, graphics card and mouse and keyboard. When I set my computer to sleep, my monitor says it's not getting a signal, my hard drive makes some grinding sounds, my power LED flashes a couple times, and I'm staring at the desktop again.

This is a brand new replacement HDD I just got from Seagate for one that died in less than a year. WTF? Does anyone have ANY clue what might be causing this? It's definitely not one of the common issues people keep directing me toward. I want to know if I should keep at trying to fix this or to just throw in the towel and buy a different brand hard drive and start over.

Windows 7: Not as easy as you think.

 

[dave1812]

. Every time I get a new MS O/S it takes months and countless hours on forums to get it working properly.

That's not normal. The only OS issues I had that had me spending some time in forums was when Vista first hit the streets. Once I loaded SP1, Vista worked much better (there were issues with finding files if one had Indexing enabled). I've loaded 7 on 5 machines and haven't had problems.