# [SOLVED] Computer wakes up randomly during night



## nerv11 (Sep 2, 2009)

In the middle of the night (or at some point) my computer will wake up randomly. I wake up in the morning to find it running at the login screen (monitor is off due to inactivity). I'm getting kind of fed-up with this stupid issue but don't know what's causing it. I flip my mouse upside-down every time to make sure its not any vibrations that are triggering it from the mouse.
Any ideas?

Thanks.


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## OldGrayGary (Jun 29, 2006)

*Re: Computer wakes up randomly during night*

See what happens if you set the default action of Windows 8 shutdown - to actually shutdown (on many systems, the default action of shutdown is set to either sleep or hibernate). And then shutdown the computer at night.

Hp has a rather exhaustive tutorial for power options (one of the nicer points is they let you in on the Win-X key-combo to bring up a handy menu) --- HP Z420 Workstation -  HP Desktop PCs - Managing Power Options (Windows 8) - c03342586 - HP Business Support Center

Best of luck
. . . Gary


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Computer wakes up randomly during night*

Hello nerv11,

Since it is happening while you sleep, I have to hazard a guess that it may be Windows 8's Task Scheduler that is at fault.


Launch Control Center
Select System & Security
Select Change Maintenance Settings
Disable the feature that allows it to wake up your PC.


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## OldGrayGary (Jun 29, 2006)

*Re: Computer wakes up randomly during night*

I forgot to mention:

Some Intel motherboards have a feature that will wake their systems to check for updates. If you have one of these, check in your Bios settings (might check in there anyway, even if yours isn't an Intel board). Here's the feature:



> *Intel® Smart Connect Technology*
> 
> Overview
> Intel® Smart Connect Technology is designed to update programs by periodically waking your computer from sleep/standby mode for a short time. This function works with applications that automatically get their data from the Internet, such as Microsoft Outlook*, Microsoft Windows* Live Mail and Seesmic*


. . . Gary


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## nerv11 (Sep 2, 2009)

*Re: Computer wakes up randomly during night*



GZ said:


> Hello nerv11,
> 
> Since it is happening while you sleep, I have to hazard a guess that it may be Windows 8's Task Scheduler that is at fault.
> 
> ...



Yes! That was it! It was set to automatically wake up at 3AM!
What a random thing to do jeez.

Thanks to you both, much appreciated! : D

Mike


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

Give it a few days before you consider this one solved... Even though I am 99% sure that this is the issue, there may be something else causing your issue. Hopefully, though, this is it.

It was the issue with mine... I usually shut down my PC, but recently I have been putting it to sleep due to some projects I have going on... the other day, I put it to sleep and it was running when I next saw it (the following day)... I had the mouse wake up disabled, (and I turn off my wireless optical mouse when not in use) so I knew that wasn't the issue... that is when I discovered the scheduler issue... 

Good luck!


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