T&L Publications

At the end of the day I set my Win 7 PC to Sleep mode and it remains that way until 6am when it springs to life with a whir as the fans spin up and the monitors come on lighting my bedroom and waking me prematurely. I thinks its always at 6 but I don't always look at the clock.

It didn't always do that, What kind of settings, processes or programs can bring a PC out of Sleep mode (aside from mouse or KB action)? I already turned off Wake on LAN in BIOS and tried turning off the wireless mouse a few nights too with no change. Any Ideas how to isolate it?

call the ghostbusters.


Other than that, it may be a piece of spyware/malware that is trying to phone home, I'd try using malwarebytes to scan the system, and do a good virus scan on your system, and remove anything that is in there. That may fix it.

If that doesnt help, try checking the logs in your modem/router, most keep a log of internet traffic with timestamps. It could also be a program you downloaded trying to get updates for itself automatically.

I still have lots of things to check. I do have a good virus scanner but there are probably some undetectable Trojans out there. Most auto update programs are sleeping and cannot wake a PC in sleep mode. It has to be a low level function doing it. I can check the log but the router serves other things that may not be off so there will be activity regardless, I need to look closely to see if it can be filtered. Its just as likely it is a virus scanner triggering the wake. In a way, they are almost more annoying than the viruses they are supposed to protect against.

lol, I tend to agree with you on that one, I usually use eset or ms security essentials on our computers, but I usually set up the time that it updates, so maybe check that also. Most are set up to be started at midnight tho or around that time.

possible virus scanning or virus database update ?
i have mine to update at 2am, then scan at 3am..but i have my puter in another room, and i never turn it off..

it stopped as mysteriously as it started, now my PC sleeps all night. I never did figure this out, a windows update may have triggered the change but I can't be 100% sure.