Arcade Turns Itself On

[deweyhewson]

Hey everyone,

My arcade I finished a couple months ago has been running great, but one problem I've ran into is that it likes to turn itself on from time to time. My internals are as follows: PC into master outlet on SmartStrip, Monitor/Speakers/Marquee Light run into the other outlets. This works fine for turning the whole system on and off with the power button I wired up. My power button is just a normal pushbutton wired to the two wires for the jumper switch on the motherboard.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the system will just turn on, though! Sometimes when I shut it down it immediately turns itself back on, other times it could stay off for 8 hours before turning on.

Sleep mode is disable on the PC, and there are no services running which would turn the machine on, either. Can anyone help?!?

[SavannahLion]

Weird, haven't heard that one in a while.

Had this problem for years with an IBM Aptiva. It would just mysteriously power itself on. Turns out it was my fridge. Every time my fridge kicked on the PC would power up.

If you Google for an answer now, you'll find most responses relate to the BIOS and things like WoL or timers or power on fail features. The Aptiva has none of these since the BIOS predated most of these features.

I would start with the obvious and check the BIOS for anything that powers on the PC. Make sure it truly is powered down and not just sleeping either.

Failing that, move the cab to a different circuit or add a UPS to the mix and see what happens.

It'd be useful if you gave us the specifics on the motherboard model you have.

[SavannahLion]

Oh and double check your wiring. Make sure there's no short somewhere.

[deweyhewson]

Thanks for getting back to me. I have an ASUS A8V-X Motherboard. It's basically the A8V, only with an AGP slot instead of a PCI-E.

The only place I could think of there being a short is on the power switch to the motherboard. I've tried disconnecting that and I don't think it solved it, but I will try it again just to make sure. And yeah, sometimes it does seem like if another device comes on the arcade will kick on, but I haven't been able to 100% verify that.

It's so bizarre. I have 15 years experience with computer hardware and software and I've never before encountered this outside of either a setting in the OS or the BIOS, neither of which is the case here. (Power options are all disabled in the BIOS, and I have no services, tasks, or power settings that would turn the computer on in Windows.)

ASUS A8V-Motherboard
Windows XP SP3

[opt2not]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=77668.0

?
 

[Don]

Are you shutting down the pc or hibernating? I ask because a pc i had would turn itself back on randomly if left on at the mains after i hibernated it.

[TOK]

Do you have "Wake On LAN" or something similar enabled in the BIOS?

Different BIOS manufacturers might call it something else, but if you have you machine on a network and it receives network traffic, it will start the machine.

[saint]

Does the smart strip have a dial to adjust the sensitivity? If so, try turning it down.

[Veeb0rg]

Chech the bios for an option *system on on power* or something similar and change it. I'm betting that the bios/psu is sensing a power drop from a fridge/ac kicking on and turning on when the power levels out again thinking you just turned the power on.

[syph007]

Some virus scanners will cause a machine to wake for a scan as well.

[lilshawn]

i use this board. (a8v-deluxe) I haven't had any issues with it randomly waking up.... i would suspect a power surge/sag is causing the issue.

i would also recommend double checking the wiring and also the BIOS (disable cool and quiet and also the power management features in the bios itself)

[divemaster127]

Mine used to do that, you need to adjust your smartstrip, problem solved

[deweyhewson]

Wow, thanks for all the replies! Here's where I'm at so far, in order:

I specifically have all the power management options disabled in the BIOS (Wake on LAN, etc.) I also am not running a virus scanner. The system is shutting completely down, not hibernating. I've tried adjusting the smart strip and it's adjusted as far as possible to still wake up the other devices when the computer comes on, so I don't think that's it. I also agree that it's most likely not the computer itself doing it as when I first set the computer up about a year ago outside of the cabinet it would never turn itself on like this.

I suspected a short in the power switch I wired up so I have it disconnected from the motherboard for now. So far (since last night when I posted and unhooked it) the machine has not turned itself on. I'm not quite to the point of "problem solved", though, as sometimes it wouldn't come on all night even before this.

So I think where I'm at right now is that it's either just a problem with my Smart Strip (and I hope not because, like I said, it's adjusted as far as possible to still turn the other devices on), or a short in the power switch wiring.

If anyone has any other ideas in the meantime, I'll sure be happy to hear them. Thanks!

[bkenobi]

Try swapping out the Smart Strip for testing.  If it still turns on, then it's wiring or BIOS settings.