The Case of the Spooky PC

Sat Oct 20, 2007 1:05PM EDT

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Here's a Halloween-type mystery. Maybe you can solve it. Why would you find your PC turned on even when you know you put it into hibernate mode the evening before? Not a trick question—I'm no somnambulist—this is a real-life mystery.

Ready for the answer? It's all about the Scheduled Task option in Windows XP and about the vendors who take the liberty of telling it to schedule tasks for you. (My husband gets the credit for solving the mystery and gets to remain my support technician for eternity.)

The problem came from installing the new Kodak EasyShare All-in-One Printer as part of a review. The printer has been back at Kodak for some time now, but it left a souvenir behind: a scheduled task to run in the middle of the night and an option clicked in the task scheduler that says "wake the computer to run this task." And so it did. The task appears to perform some sort of "maintenance." I've got a call into Kodak to hear its side of the story.

When I checked my other machine I found that Apple's QuickTime automatically scheduled time to check things out and download new versions of the software, too. It didn't check the "wake computer up" option, though. My guess is that many of you have automated programs in your scheduler without knowing it.

What can you do to check your scheduled tasks? From the Control Panel selected Scheduled Tasks and double click. You'll see any programs that you (or the vendor) have decided you should run periodically. (The are good scheduled tasks. Backup comes to mind.)

Once you're in the scheduled task, click on the Settings tab. If the choice "wake the computer up to start this task" is checked, you, too, may solve your own Case of the Spooky PC.

Comments on The Case of the Spooky PC

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  • 1 Posted by yourway692003 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    if you moved the keyboard after you put it to sleep it woke it right back up

  • 2 Posted by bobblumenfeld on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:10PM EDT Report Abuse

    Robin, in Hibernate mode, the computer is physically off, as in Not Running At All. In Sleep mode, it's still on -- at a reduced power setting -- and handling things like scheduled tasks and wakeups. When you start up in the morning, do you press a key or press the On button (not the Sleep button) on your computer?

  • 3 Posted by simulation90 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    As the above post states, in Hibernate mode the OS is not running, the computer is off and its state is saved to the hard drive. The only way a computer can "Wake Up" without the user doing something (moving the mouse, pressing a key) is: 1. The computer is in Sleep (a.k.a. Suspend or Standby) where the OS is running, or: 2. You have set the BIOS to turn on and off your computer at certain times automatically.

  • 4 Posted by cgbiava@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    I have a similar "spooky" problem with a new computer with Windows XP. After I turn the computer off , the computer re-starts by itself after between 4 and 20 seconds. This happen more often after using the computer for some time. When I turn on the computer in the morning and I turn it off again after a short time of operation,usually it doesn't re-start by itself. But it is unpredictable. Does anybody have a solution?

  • 5 Posted by simulation90 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    To cgbiava: It is either the power supply, the cable connecting to the motherboard from the power supply, or (and this is the least likely because you don't push the power button on computers to turn them off anymore) the cable connecting the power button to the motherboard. Start with the second one as it is the easiest thing to replace.

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