This is just frackin' weird

[Spider]

No, not me. Those of you who know me will vouch I am completely out of touch with reality, but that isn't the case here.

It's my computer. When Windows goes to sleep, the power button flashes like it's supposed to. The other day (or night rather) I go into my study and turn on the lamp, and the computer comes on. I figured I must have touched something, maybe moved my mouse, touched my keyboard or something.

So, according to the principles to which I hold dearly, the scientific method, I tested this. Put the computer to sleep, turn on the lamp, and it wakes up. Without touching ANYTHING else other than the lamp switch, the computer wakes up. The lamp is plugged into a different power strip going to a different wall socket. WTF?

And no, I haven't been drinking or smoking pot. Although I will be doing both shortly.

Next, I put the computer to sleep with the lamp on. I turn the lamp off, and the computer wakes up. GODDAMMIT WTF?

Someone please explain to me what the damned shit is going on here.

 

[sojourner]

Cordless mouse and or keyboard? The lamp may be triggering (EM interference) the wireless receiver in either one and registering as a "wakeup" signal. Either that or you have a very sensitive motion sensor in the mouse and it's picking up the vibration of you switching on the lamp through the surface of the desk.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

When I turn off the bathroom lights, the TV in the other room burps, and I think the HDMI set top box connected to it goes on and off momentarily. A slight change in the power input is enough to make it do that. It's strange to me, because electric equipment used to do that before back in the day, but not now, and anything digital and even my CFLs are not doing it (IIRC incandescents did).

However, the ways the same can affect your mouse, keyboard and/or computer are limitless. Mouse turns on and off and causes it to wake up?

ETA: I'm also witnessing some mouse DPI poltergeists. I have a 1600 DPI mouse, but that's too fast to use, so I've slowed it down. In effect, moving the mouse doesn't move the cursor. So when I touch the mouse, screen wakes up, and I am asked for my password. When I touch the table, the screen wakes up, but I am not asked for password, because the mouse really hasn't moved. I was scared the first time.

But there are also 8200 DPI mice that are 5 times more sensitive, and if I had one I wouldn't be surprised if it woke my computer by just opening the door.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

Does it wake up if you shine a flash light on it? Maybe your notebook has a light sensor and you don't know it?

 

[Spider]

This doesn't happen in the dark when I shine a flashlight. It doesn't happen when I turn the overhead ceiling light on at night, so this isn't a light thingie.

If I (1) unplug my UPS from source, (2) put computer to sleep while on the battery power, (3) turning light off/on does nothing. (4) Plug UPS back into the wall (5) turning off/on the lamp wakes up the computer.

The computer doesn't wake up just because the lamp is turned off and on because I broke that source. This only happens when my UPS is plugged into the wall. THAT is what is so curious.

Edit: yes, I ran diagnostics on the UPS and it says it's OK. Unless it's lying.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Except for an online UPS, its presence would probably have little effect when the power is fluctuation. Even with an UPS, my PC used to reboot every time the mains fluctuated and caused the lights to flicker. When the power off completely, there was no problem, but when it only flickered, the PC rebooted.

Similarly, any disturbance caused by the flicking the light switch would not be compensated for by the UPS, unless it's an online one, so the PC will “feel” it. Now, a wake up is strange, but certainly not impossible.

 

[Spider]

Except for an online UPS, its presence would probably have little effect when the power is fluctuation. Even with an UPS, my PC used to reboot every time the mains fluctuated and caused the lights to flicker. When the power off completely, there was no problem, but when it only flickered, the PC rebooted.

Similarly, any disturbance caused by the flicking the light switch would not be compensated for by the UPS, unless it's an online one, so the PC will “feel” it. Now, a wake up is strange, but certainly not impossible.

I'm thinking you are talking about conditions that might vary. My problem with all this, is the conditions do not vary.

The condition described applies when UPS has a power source. The condition does not apply when the UPS does not have a power source. Yet, the UPS self diagnostics tell me everything is good. And the UPS is working perfectly. As far as I can tell and tested.

 

[intrinsical]

This is what's known as an air-gap hack :P

 

[Sgt_G]

Just to be safe, I'd have a licensed electrician check out the house. Years back, we had a situation in which if we turned on the stove / oven, the lights in the living room came on dimly. The lamps' switches were off. There was a problem in the fuse box causing 220-volts to be fed to the 110-circuits. Very dangerous.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

I'm thinking you are talking about conditions that might vary. My problem with all this, is the conditions do not vary.

The condition described applies when UPS has a power source. The condition does not apply when the UPS does not have a power source. Yet, the UPS self diagnostics tell me everything is good. And the UPS is working perfectly. As far as I can tell and tested.

And that makes what I said apply even more. If the problem is not present when the UPS is unplugged from the mains, then this is evidence that the PC wakes up because of some sort of fluctuation on the mains. Small enough that the UPS doesn't care about it, so of course self-diagnostics wouldn't tell anything, but big enough so that the PC would wake up from it.

If it is not an online UPS, the PC is not connected to the UPS, it is connected to the mains. The UPS switches it off from the mains when it decides so. (With the caveat that line interactive ones are more complex than that, but they still aren't online.) When you unplug the UPS, the PC is no longer connected to the mains, the problem disappears.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I suggest looking in the system logs for clues about the events that cause the PC to wake up.

http://www.howtogeek.com/187009/ask-htg-why-is-my-computer-waking-up-prematurely/

You can also enter "powercfg -lastwake" in a command shell to tell you why it last woke. The command "powercfg -devicequery wake_armed" tells you which devices can wake it.

You can try disabling devices from waking the PC or tweak the power settings to stop programs from waking it.

http://www.howtogeek.com/122954/how-to-prevent-your-computer-from-waking-up-accidentally/

ETA: I suspect a mains spike is triggering a false input event in an HID such as the keyboard or mouse.

 

[Spider]

Thanks everyone for responding. What fixed it was the maintenance guy in my apartment complex "cleaning the connection between the neutral pad and the ground" in my apartment's dist. panel. Or so he says. After he "did that", the problem went away. I can't recreate the problem, so supposedly everything is normal.

Of course, with me, normal is relative.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Exactly turning that switch off, even on another power strip might cause an electrical surge, enough to trip the power switch and cause the PC or any other device to switch on. I've had similar experiences to you guys as I used to have a touch lamp in my room plugged into another power outlet but if I used the lamp sometimes things like the TV or DVD player would come on and I'd have to turn them off. It was never consistently like this but happened randomly.

When the lamp eventually did die and was no longer used this never ever happened again. For those that might not know a touch lamp uses EM from your fingers to turn the light on and off. No switches at all as its metal base or body is what is used to switch the power by touching it.

 

[publiusr]

Be careful with generators and dirty power
http://www.survivaljoe.net/beware-of-dirty-power/