Ghost in the Machine

Did you post this AFTER the ghost (more likely a poltergeist) booted up that Perspiron (good name, maybe you can get a royalty from Dell?) Maybe i have it in my PC now ...

Maybe your computer was part of their recent promotion, buy one, ghost one free ?

You get what you pay for, right? lol

Who knows, maybe it smelled the coffee. Now if I could only find a good, self-booting coffee pot which does all the work itself AND makes good coffee. Until such time, I think Man's use of the word 'civilisation' is a bit premature.

Is your house built over an old graveyard?

Does Dell's dumpster out back count?

Is your house built over an old graveyard?

Boot Hill?

Oooooh yes! GA+

^{_{I see dead people computers......................................................}}

Funny, he doesn't look like Mark Gaulin.

After a quick internet search it seems you can set the computer BIOS to startup at a certain time or even remotely start the computer from supposed off (which is really only just deep sleep unlike a mechanical switch which is either fully off or fully on).

<drum roll>.........Why do you think it is called......Windoze?

<dead silence>

<dead silence>

And Crickets chirping...........

did it happen when you unplugged the pot?

Could have, but I'm tending to suspect it's got to do with the BIOS settings, as Ms. E has the same issues (I learned today, much to my surprise, after mentioning to her this issue with mine. (sigh) We both have the same Dell model, same crap OS, btw...)

frequency in the power line? i'ld plug them in two different circuts if it becomes a problem. it's an interesting story.

Doubtful. It's a laptop, right, and the power supply wot supples DC to the battery circuit contains one hellacious filter capacitor. You can tell by the supply's LED staying lit for scores of seconds after you pull the AC plug. When connected, the supply feeds the internal DC-DC converters inside the 'puter and any transients (the motive for your question I think) will have been bypassed so completely by that point that they're prolly measured in millivolts. That's my guess.

Given that Ms. E's laptop is the same in just about every respect, but that she keeps it at work and yet has been having this same problem, I'm guessing it's some sort of weirdness in the machine itself.

Went into the BIOS, btw, and there are no settings which govern remote wakeup via network adapter. There is a setting for remote wakeup via USB port (for which I have a use) but this is currently disabled.

What to do?

Stay up all night, and watch it closely. That's what the coffee pot is for.

Oh, that. The coffee pot is just a diversion so she won't notice the espresso IVs jacked-in both arms.

It's come to that, I'm afraid.

Find a place with, "an exactly circular and very deep lake'.........................................

Too late. That statistician's already croaked.

Know a place wot's Klorinated?

got it.

Yup. Bought a Dell XPS Studio Pro some time back. SSHD (250 GiB), full complement of 64-bit RAM, 8 cores, WinHosed 7 Ultimate. Right. Nice on paper.

Pixels died and the solid-state hard drive sh!t the bed two weeks after the warranty ran out. Couldn't do a thing about it, the Dellbots said, as if to say "We gots yer money, chump! C'est la vie! Hey, is it our fault our products are crap?"

Well, yes, it is.

These two laptops are more recent purchases, but deep-discounted and so looked pretty attractive. I'm beginning to feel that Dell products aren't worth the money at any price. Not even free. Too many problems. If Dell have ever learned the lesson, they've since forgotten it: "If you can't take good care of your customers, no worries, someone else can - and will."

Hello Samsung.

I have also had problems with Dell equipment. Always looks like a good deal for the price, and then you wish you had spent a little extra because of all the problems. My most recent laptop purchase is a Fujitsu, and it hasn't given me even (1) hiccup.

You're in Carrollton, Texas? Dell's in Round Rock. I used to live in Cedar Park. The place is crawlin' with Dellbots. Smart people, but I'm sure these days none of 'em work in the Quality department.

Sony used to be Dell's battery vendor. Don't know if they still are, what with Sony's batteries catching fire --- on airplanes of all places.

Some here have suggested I've been hacked. Come to think of it, I better check to see if the battery in this one has a USB port. Maybe Sony came up with a new and better way of installing their rootkits on Dell computers, prolly figurin' anyone stupid enough to buy a Dell wouldn't notice. (not to mention repeat customers, ie, Yours Truly)

Think I'll call my contact at Dell, Ben Dover, for a good time.

???

It appears that James has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off... and enjoys our comments.

thanks you broken record...

Hey, look on the bright side. At least the PC woke up unexpectedly, it did not go to sleep unexpectedly. I have friends who have suffered from the previous...

There were some funky auto-wakeup settings which were prolly the culprit. I do a lot of CGI work on this piece of caca and so I set everything to max performance (a stopgap until I get my water-cooled Alienware tower with four AMD 6990's. Hows an aggregate 22 teraflops sound? 120 fps 4000p 3DHD. Almost better than sex. Will need the Grand Coulee Dam to power the damn thing but who's counting? (375 W per adapter).]

GA!

does it have WiFi? do you always log in as administrator? maybe you got hacked by anonymous!

Well, if Anonymous hacked me, they're in for a boring time. (hey, maybe they'll leave a few pointers as to how I can legally gain access to my ex's emails. You know, for my own protection. You have no idea.)

It's probably the dehumidifier....You can disable it in BIOS....

Did she give you the Bill Clinton special?

Years ago I was sitting in front of my computer when it turned itself on and logged onto the internet. Tried to turn it off and eventually turned the power surge off. Called a customer who worked at the big M as an analyst and he found a program that loaded itself onto my hard-drive via a jpeg. It wasn't just a Trojan, and it was absolutely a pain to deal with. After many hours with security programs and tech assistance I ended up changing computers. The Company that wrote the nasty program was based in Colorado and it was called "I see You". On the other hand, maybe it's a friendly ghost?

You mean kinda like a "friendly burglar?" That's what they are - but they all look the same through a rifle scope. Trust me.

Did someone say Trojan........I suppose your computer is really screwed, E.......sorry!

No you're not. Just look at that smile lol!

Recently I also bought Dell inspiron model. Yes some times it acts funny.

Thanks, Wal. This is really useful to know.

GA+

You may have Trojan software on your PC. It could mean that your PC is partially under the control of world wide mafia and the like. Here in Germany we have had software sent free by the German Government to find and erase such Trojans......

You need GOOD antivirus software if you want to keep on top of such things....There is a lot of CRAP Antivirus software around that simply does not protect fully.....I never trust free software, ever....but many do and swear by/at it.....

It would be interesting to hear what you use.....and how old it is, and when it was last updated.

That's not a ghost in the machine..... It's an intruder in the living room!!!

I am told not to shut off the lap top daily,but only once a week. This due to fact that batteries draw high current when switched on. Is it correct method to protect batter

Your battery lasts one week?

"Batteries" is just a figure of speech. You guys are soooo Auld Skool!
Banana peels and beer sold separately. Void where taxed or prohibited.

I have never heard of this before, its probably put about by battery companies trying to drum up business. Are you expecting that the electricity bill will be higher?

Do not forget that every time a battery is charged, that's one of its max charges used up, no matter how short.

A good modern battery will have on average about 1000 charges if handled well.....Some more some less.....

Also, not all laptops charge in the correct manner, so that battery life gets further drastically reduced in some cases.....

I leave the batteries out of the laptop, with a minimum charge in them.....that way they don't get used too much and after 4 years of very occasional usage, are still great for when I have no access to the mains.

I charge it when needed.....

If you live in a poor mains area, then a UPS is a good buy for all your computer equipment.....not just the laptop....

Since we seem to have covered the "wake on LAN" and other network dependant windows quirks let me add that your antivirus can also do this if it is set that way. It can turn your machine on, log you in, connect to the internet, update its virus database and then run the scan, and finding no boogymen, shut back down. It can do this from a full windows boot or as a background operation in the shell. Either way it wakes the system up.

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a computer.

just try to correct a billing error in your utility bill! LOL

Does it look like this?

That thing should be taken out and shot.

Thanks to everyone for your assistance. Kudos to Ozzb and Wal especially for info and links which helped directly in solving this problem.

My computer now does what it's told.

(I also showed it my sledgehammer, AKA Plan B)