Ever since I uninstalled a wireless networking card and started using the on-board NIC on my computer - my computer boots automatically.
Within minutes after shutting down - it starts itself back up.
I'm thinking there's some kind of "wake on LAN" thing going on here but don't know where to look.
I'm using Win XP Pro and my motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum.
My PC is wired to my Linksys router. via the onboard ethernet port on the motherboard to a client port on the router.
How do I fix it so the computer doesn't automatically turn itself on?
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The simplest test to see if wake on LAN (WOL) is active on your machine is to remove the ethernet cable & see if it reboots.
(also check if the lights on your NIC are on while the computer is apparently shut down)
Disabling WOL can usually be done in the BIOS for the PC especially if it is an integrated card - there should be a specific BIOS setting - look for wake on LAN or NDIS4.
ok,
i'll try unplugging the ethernet cord and see if it turns on.
it will be slightly difficult to unplug the NIC itself since it is integrated on the motherboard.
I checked the BIOS earlier and didn't see anything but I'll check again.
I'll do this tonight since its my home computer giving me the problem.
You don't need to remove the NIC. Just unplug the ethernet cable from the onbaord LAN.
Sometimes you have to really dig down deep into the menus in the BIOS. On some motherboards theare literally 100's of settings. You need to look for something like "Integrated Devices" or something along those lines.
If you have your manual for you MB that might be useful or else you might be able to download it from the manufacturer's site.
Try power management settings this is the kind of page you are looking for:
http://www.atmarkit.co.jp/
Here's the test I did -
unplugged network card and shut down PC - I left it for 10 minutes or so it didn't start up.
I then plugged the cable back in while still shut down and left it again - it didn't start up.
I started it up myself and checked the BIOS - couldn't find anything to do with "wake on LAN".
I will perform some more tests and let you know what happens.
Here's what I did after my last test.
Since I couldn't find anything in BIOS regarding wake on LAN I decided to flash my BIOS.
I think I grabbed a slightly wrong BIOS version because things look strange . . . different splash screen - problems booting.
It works now but still doesn't look like it did before.
I had to unplug my second hard drive and only have the boot drive plugged in.
So - I think I have to get the correct version of BIOS installed before I can continue on with the wake on LAN. I'll be working on that for a few days probably - to research and get the correct version, etc - I'll check back here later.
I found the exact motherboard model page.
http://www.msi.com.tw/prog
I'm going to download and install the correct BIOS hopefully tonight.
-- after a BIOS flash, the screen *may* look different... (during boot up, a.k.a "POST").
The BIOS may not support WAKE ON LAN... however, most recent ones do.
If the computer is going into hibernate, a power "hickup" might be causing a power resume on... would likely be in the same grouping level as Wake on Lan.
here's the end result:
I used the MSI updater tool to update my BIOS - not sure if I have the right version or not because after running the update, then running the updater tool again MSI still says my bios needs to be updated. I don't care though since the PC works fine with the current BIOS.
Anyway - even after updating bios I couldn't find wake on lan stuff in the bios config screens and I still had the auto restart problem.
SO - Since my motherboard has 2 different onboard NICs I just switched to using the other one. It doesn't restart itself anymore.
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by: ScottChaPosted on 2006-10-09 at 12:32:39ID: 17692847
The "Wake on LAN" sounds exactly like what is going on.
The setting for this is somewhere in your BIOS. You can usually access this by pressing the <del> key on startup.
Then go into the settings and hunt around until you find it and turn that setting off.
Post how things go.