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pc power button blinking


mark skinner

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I've gone into my studio twice this week and found the power button light blinking on my Lenovo tower. When I wiggle the mouse the windows log in screen pops up.   It normally logs me in automatically. I always shut down the pc when I'm thru working. Anyone have a clue why it's booting up on its own ?  Should I turn off my surge protector and could it be causing it ..  Poltergeist ??         mark

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26 minutes ago, mark skinner said:

I've gone into my studio twice this week and found the power button light blinking on my Lenovo tower. When I wiggle the mouse the windows log in screen pops up.   It normally logs me in automatically. I always shut down the pc when I'm thru working. Anyone have a clue why it's booting up on its own ?  Should I turn off my surge protector and could it be causing it ..  Poltergeist ??         mark

Have you/anyone else maybe unplugged or plugged in a USB device while it was off? Mine has been known to boot up when plugging in the wireless dongle thing for the keyboard/mouse after I have borrowed it to use elsewhere.

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Sometimes when the power hiccups, some of my stuff will come on and others won't, regardless of whether they were on before the glitch.
More than once after an electrical storm, I'll find one or both of my boxes on.

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Isn't there a setting letting the os start up to do certain things?

Like, update defender and scan the disk. Defrag and other maintenance.

Did win10 update recently? Settings could've been altered then.

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IMO it is very difficult to avoid such behavior. Thus I always use a power distribution with an off switch for my pc's. Like that I never run into such problems independent of my Windows/BIOS configurations! 😉

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This is probably as good a place as any to remind everyone to use something to protect your equipment, preferably a UPS so that any brief outage won't cause damage (or annoyances).  In every rack I used to have I had a Furman, but both my DAW and modem/router/switch areas had UPS'.  Definitely saved my bacon a couple of times! 

I should also note that, for decades, I always keep my computers on 24/7.  Going from no power to full power is when most of the electrical parts tend to fail.  I only reboot for maintenance and updates.

Edited by craigb
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That makes a lot of sense depending on where you live.

I'm just the opposite, but I live in a place that has a lot of thunderstorms. Almost daily in the rainy season and often during the dry season too. And they come with little or no warning at times.

First of all I use a good UPS for my gear, it keeps the spikes and dips out.

Next I turn on the gear first thing in the morning and shut it off either when lightning gets close or before I go to bed, whichever comes first.

I've had a lightning hit tear up gear, I lost a modem, a printer and a computer. I left it all plugged in and went out for lunch. One of those instant thunderstorms came up in a hurry while I was in the restaurant. I got home and could smell the damage when I opened the front door.  Along with the computer went the data on the hard drive. To me that's more important than the computer.

If lightning hits close, no surge protector in the world will help, but unplugging it will.

I saw a phone company map for frequency of lightning strikes in the lower 48 once. There was a oval-ish shape between Tampa and Palm Beach that had the most lightning strikes per year in that area. Another oval-ish ring around that was second, and I'm in that ring.

Looks like they are building up to the west of us, where the east and the west sea breezes are clashing in the middle of the peninsula. At least they aren't sneaking in today.

Insights and incites by Notes

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Many years ago I decided to see what being 'normal' was. I quit playing music full-time and became a musical "weekend warrior". During the week I was a telephone repairman. This was back in the days when telephones had wires connecting them to the network.  (Normal for me is soooo overrated so I went back to full-time gigging for a living).

I had a call where a house had a lightning event.

The telephone drop wire that went from the pole to the house was still there, bit it had no copper in it, just a brittle neoprene jacket that bending it would break.

At the house the metal flashing around the eaves was melted to the hook that the now hollow drop wire was attached to.

On the wall there used to be a telephone company lightning protector. There was only a black mark on the wall where the protector used to be. Parts of it were found about 50 feet away on the chain link fence.

The protector used to be connected to the power company ground rod by a 12 gauge plastic coated copper ground wire. There was a black line where the wire used to be.

The cable that went from the protector to the phone was still there. But the 4 wires inside were fused together and the colored insulation plastic was dripping out of the cable jacket here and there.

The phone was a wall phone, and there was just a bit of soot around the dial. I took the cover off and the inside of the phone was melted.

The home owners told me they were sleeping, the bang woke them up and they were being pelted with something. When they turned on the light there were two holes in the plaster ceiling exposing wire-lath about 2 feet in diameter. This is what fell on them.

They lost their TV and a few other appliances and needed a couple of electric circuits replaced.

They told me the power company had been out already and it was determined that the lightning probably either hit the power mast or the power drop wire.

That's another reason why I unplug when not in use.

Insights and incites by Notes

PS Like Craig I also use a power conditioner on my band gear, either at home or on the gig. I use TrippLite brand, but Furman units offer the same protection. This keeps voltage spikes and dips out of your precious gear and makes them last longer.

 

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