movement of mouse turns on pc
in [Windows XP]
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From: Jack B on 9 Apr 2010 22:52 I thought I licked my pc crash problem, but apparently not. The pc locks up and I need to give it a hard shut down. But if I move the mouse afterwards, the pc powers on just as if I pushed the power on button! Does this give anyone a clue as to what the problem is? Jack
From: Richard in AZ on 9 Apr 2010 23:17 Define "hard Shut down". Sounds like you have the power-on button set to put the computer to sleep. Check settings in the Power applet in the control panel. Is the computer a laptop? or Desktop? "Jack B" <jslimp01nospam(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message news:%23JyyljF2KHA.5880(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... >I thought I licked my pc crash problem, but apparently not. > > The pc locks up and I need to give it a hard shut down. > > But if I move the mouse afterwards, the pc powers on just as if I pushed the > power on button! Does this give anyone a clue as to what the problem is? > > Jack > >
From: Paul on 10 Apr 2010 00:01 Jack B wrote: > I thought I licked my pc crash problem, but apparently not. > > The pc locks up and I need to give it a hard shut down. > > But if I move the mouse afterwards, the pc powers on just as if I pushed the > power on button! Does this give anyone a clue as to what the problem is? > > Jack > Finding the source of freezing, is not easy. There is no test that says "Aha. The reason for freezing, is a broken gizmo.". You might find it by trial and error. For example, try a clean install of WinXP on a brand new disk. Does the PC freeze now ? If it doesn't freeze, you might conclude there was a software component to the problem. If you don't like that option, booting with a Linux LiveCD like Knoppix or Ubuntu, can be used for a freezing test case. Computers have power saving features, such as Intel SpeedStep (EIST) and AMD Cool N' Quiet. The processor is operated at a reduced voltage and frequency, when it is idle. There is a remote chance, that the processor is not stable at one of the extremes of that kind of adjustment. By using the "Power" control panel and changing the power scheme to "Always ON", you can experiment with operating the CPU at the highest setting all the time. If you get more stability, then you might just leave it that way. While bad RAM could cause problems, it is just as likely to promote a crash (BSOD) as a freeze, so I'm not confident that changing the RAM configuration, trying different RAM etc., will help. ******* In the computer BIOS, there will be options for how to "wake" the computer. One of my systems here, has an option for any key pressed on the keyboard to wake it. There could be "wake on PS/2", "wake on USB", "wake on LAN", "enable PME" and the like items in one particular BIOS screen. One of those could be responsible for the computer responding when you move the mouse. To stop that on one of my computers, I changed the power option for the mouse and keyboard, from +5VSB to +5V. Making that change, ensures the keyboard and mouse are only powered when the computer is running. On that computer, there was a jumper plug on the motherboard that controls the selection. By making that change to the jumper, the keyboard and mouse can no longer wake the computer, no matter what other settings are used. Modern systems have removed that jumper option, and many computers now run the interfaces with +5VSB. As a result, between the BIOS and the OS, you have to figure out a way to stop the waking via software. For example, if you look at the Device Manager entry for your keyboard, maybe there is an option in there that controls it. "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby" Perhaps stopping it, will be as easy as unticking the box for that option, in the Keyboard or Mouse entry in the Device Manager. HTH, Paul
From: Jose on 10 Apr 2010 07:23 On Apr 9, 10:52 pm, "Jack B" <jslimp01nos...(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > I thought I licked my pc crash problem, but apparently not. > > The pc locks up and I need to give it a hard shut down. > > But if I move the mouse afterwards, the pc powers on just as if I pushed the > power on button! Does this give anyone a clue as to what the problem is? > > Jack "A crash problem" is pretty general and offers few details and crash does not mean the same thing to different people. When you invoke your "hard shut down" does that mean you use the power button? Keep that up and things will get worse, but sometimes that is what you gotta do. Does move the mouse mean click the mouse or does it really mean move the mouse? I am not sure how it is possible to provide information (other than guesses) about your BIOS features unless we know what your BIOS is. If you want to see if your system BIOS has some feature that allows the computer to power up fro the mouse, we can help look at your documentation for your system if you provide the following information: Please provide additional information about your system: Click Start, Run and in the box enter: msinfo32 Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the information back here. There will be some personal information (like System Name and User Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just delete it from the pasted information. This will minimize back and forth Q&A and eliminate guesswork. Of course you have run decent malware scans? Reduce the chances of malicious software by running some scans. Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware detection programs: Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/ SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS): http://www.superantispyware.com/ These can be uninstalled later if desired. If you want to run a RAM test, it may help you to know how: Run a test of your RAM with memtest86+ (I know it is boring and will cost you a CD). Memtest86+ is a more up to date version of the old memtest program and they are not the same. The memtest86+ will not run under Windows, so you will need to download the ISO file and create a bootable CD, boot on that and then run the memtest86+ program. If even a single error is reported that is a failure and should make you suspicious of your RAM. If you have multiple sticks of RAM you may need to run the test on them one at a time and change them out to isolate the failure to a particular single stick. Always keep at least the first bank of RAM occupied so the test will find something to do and there is enough to boot your system. Sometimes, reseating the RAM in the slots will relieve the error but a failure is still cause for suspicion. The file and instructions are here: http://www.memtest.org/ If someone says to run memtest86, you can say that you know memtest86+ supercedes memtest86 and here's why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86 Let' say you boot on a Linux or PE CD and your system doesn't freeze. What do you do now to figure out why XP freezes? You are truing to figure out why it freezes in XP - not why it doesn't freeze with Linux. I think the more often it freezes in XP, the happier you should be because it will be easier it is to find the problem. There is a way to get to a point to be able to say - Aha the reason for freezing is... MS has a built in feature built in feature (normally disabled) that is designed specifically to help debug systems that lock up. This will make it easy to spot the problem and achieve the "this is the broken gizmo" information you need to fix it. It is not a mystery, no trial and error, no might be, no could be, no guessing. There is a reason for the lock up or hang and you can find out what is going on and focus your attention in that area. Figure it out and fix it. Here is more standard copy/paste: If your system stops responding, hangs or freezes and you can't figure out why, you can force a BSOD which will create a crash dump file that you can analyze and see what is running at the point of the freeze and get some ideas that do not involve guesswork. It is good to create a few crash dumps if you can and analyze them for a patter - maybe a certain driver or program that is in every crash dump. While it may seem odd to think about purposefully causing a Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD), Microsoft includes such a provision in Windows XP. The feature is built in to XP specifically to diagnose the problem when a system stops responding and there is no trail in any of the Event Logs, etc. about what might have happened. Here's how to force your system to create a BSOD: Before making registry changes, backup your registry with this popular free and easy to use tool: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/ For PS/2 keyboards, launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) and navigate to: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters For USB keyboards (it is a rumor to me so far): HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters Click Edit, select New DWORD Value and name the new value CrashOnCtrlScroll. Double-click the CrashOnCtrlScroll DWORD Value, type 1 in the Value Data text box, and click OK. Close the Registry Editor and restart Windows XP. When you want to cause a BSOD (when your system has stopped responding), press and hold down the [Ctrl] key on the right side of your keyboard, and then tap the [ScrollLock] key twice. Now you should see the BSOD and you will have a crash dump file to analyze. In just a few minutes after the next incident, you will know exactly what the problem is and where to start looking. If you decide to pursue this debugging method, we can teach you how to analyze the crash dump to spot your particular issue. Here is an FYI MS article about this feature: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff545499.aspx
From: Jack B on 10 Apr 2010 11:18
Thanks guys -- a lot of info. I'll need to work on it. BTW, I've switched CPUs with no different results. Just for the record, NO, the machine was not merely sleeping. It was a hard, 3 second, push-the-button power off shut down. It is incredible that movement of the mouse afterwards actually turned the machine back on, with a boot-up and the check disk routine it goes thru after a hard shut down. The pc has been super stable ever since I bought back in 2001, until recently. Obviously, it is getting on in years and I should replace it. However, I don't want to go thru that hassle until I complete a project that should be done in the next 2 weeks. And that's the rub -- Do I (1) take time to try and fix the pc, (2) just hope it will keep going till I'm done with my project, or (3) take time to buy a new pc and learn a new operating system and repopulate the pc with the programs I need etc. I'm pressed for time and need the next stage of my project done in the next 5 days. When I say the pc is crashing, I mean total lock up -- no BSOD, just total freeze -- it doesn't respond to anything -- no mouse movement, no CTL-ALT-DEL, nothing. Here is the pc info: OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600 OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name ......... System Manufacturer SNC302EEH System Model VIA_K7 System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1466 Mhz BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 062710, 10/8/2001 SMBIOS Version 2.3 Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32 Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)" User Name ............. Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time Total Physical Memory 1,536.00 MB Available Physical Memory 1.00 GB Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 2.11 GB Page File C:\pagefile.sys Thanks, Jack |