Not Ghost but Ghosts!!

[salan]

Hi all,
We have started to have an unusual problem with 117 machines!
They are turning themslves on at between 3:15 and 4:55 on a Friday, sometimes a Saturday.This started about three weeks ago(nothing that I know of happened then)
No one is using them and before anyone suggests WOL is turned off in bios.
These are new(ish machines) majority less then one year old.
Not all the same make (some NEC some Fuji), not all the same model.
They all have ranger on them.
Anyone any ideas?
Sophos has scanned them fully and says nowts there (spyware/virus). No activity happens (no internet access etc), no unusual processes running.
Help!

[BenABF]

Anyone been playing round with the bios? Our HP machines have the option of powering the machines on via the bios at a scheduled time. Also might be worth checking the loss of power option and checking it is set to off just incase its a power outage issue

[ninjabeaver]

Anyone been playing round with the bios? Our HP machines have the option of powering the machines on via the bios at a scheduled time. Also might be worth checking the loss of power option and checking it is set to off just incase its a power outage issue

Second that. Is your BIOS on the machines passworded at all?

There is an option to wake on alarm / certain time on most MoBo's nowadays.

[salan]

Second that. Is your BIOS on the machines passworded at all?

There is an option to wake on alarm / certain time on most MoBo's nowadays.

Yep BIOs is passworded and these options have NOT been set.
Any other ideas?

[PeterW]

Sorry can you confirm are all of them turning on or is it just a few randomly coming on?

[jamesb]

Any heavy machinery or similar installed recently? Are the computers plugged into surge protectors? Anywhere near a train line, or something else which might cause surges?

I ask because this is something which used to come up at a school I worked at, we eventually figured out it was due to a train line nearby causing surges on the line which in turn would cause computers to start up at apparently random times, and occasionally just to burn out entirely.

[Gerry]

Some BIOS's have an option to wake up the PC after certain events have occured like power loss, movement of the mouse, keyboard press, WOL etc...

[mac_shinobi]

reset bios to defaults ( manufacturer defaults ) that or update the bios and see if that helps ?

[stu]

Any heavy machinery or similar installed recently? Are the computers plugged into surge protectors? Anywhere near a train line, or something else which might cause surges?

I ask because this is something which used to come up at a school I worked at, we eventually figured out it was due to a train line nearby causing surges on the line which in turn would cause computers to start up at apparently random times, and occasionally just to burn out entirely.

this may be true but im sure that i can use this as a blagg at some point

[salan]

We have tried resetting the BIOS to fefaults and it is only 117 out of approx 400 pc's that are doing this. It seems to be the same ones though.
Again WOL andtimers and wakeup on power outage etc are all turned off.

[PeterW]

In that case I would echo this

Some BIOS's have an option to wake up the PC after certain events have occured like power loss, movement of the mouse, keyboard press, WOL etc...

It sounds like the option "on power failure" is set to always on as apposed to last state.

[salan]

In that case I would echo this

It sounds like the option "on power failure" is set to always on as apposed to last state.

Thanks, I will check this but as far as I know it is last state.

[chrisjako]

have you got a 3rd party peice of software which remotes all the machines like LANSCHOOL/NETOP?

Maybe a teacher has scheduled the power on option??

shot in dark but worth a try!

[salan]

have you got a 3rd party peice of software which remotes all the machines like LANSCHOOL/NETOP?

Maybe a teacher has scheduled the power on option??

shot in dark but worth a try!

Thought of that, But no we don't have.
We have reset everyoption in the BIOS to keep the things tunred off in one room and will see if that stops it.
Couldn't find a 'bad setting' but you never know!

[Martin]

salan,

As well as checking the various BIOS settings, try some empirical tests...

Turn the mains OFF and then ON to a "switched off" (one that has the problem) PC to see it it wakes up.
Switch a kettle on (and off) on a socket near to one of the problem PCs - we had one in the office that turned on in the mornings as the kettle boiled!

mb