My computer has a bad habit of starting and restarting itself. This usually happens at least once a day, and I often come back to my computer after being away to find the machine sitting at the Windows logon screen. I have read your past answers about disabling all power management settings in the BIOS and I have done this, but the problem remains. Interestingly enough, the computer also restarts in response to certain stimuli. For example, when I click the “Copy” button in Nero the computer restarts. I don’t know if this is a related problem, but reinstalling Nero has not resolved the issue. Any advice you can provide on this problem would be greatly accepted.

It is tricky to know whether the impromptu start-ups (from a powered off state) are related to the restarts in response to completing certain operations on the computer, such as clicking the “Copy” button within Nero. To begin with, we will assume these problems are not related. When your computer starts from a powered-off state, this is almost certainly to do with the computer waking in response to something. The most common reasons a computer will start is the wake on LAN functions, although some motherboards even have the capability to wake on a keyboard press or mouse click. Despite having disabled all the power management settings within the BIOS setup, it is possible that something has been missed. To determine whether the computer is indeed starting (waking) in response to something connected externally to the machine, shutdown the computer and then unplug everything from the computer (except power). This means that nothing should be connected to the computer, except the power lead. This should definitively tell us whether something was connected causing the computer to automatically startup. Monitor the computer over a period of time to see whether the computer starts. Most likely, the computer will not startup by itself. You will now need to go through a process of elimination to determine which connected device was causing the computer to start. I suggest that you re-connect all the devices to the computer, power-up and then shutdown the computer, and then wait until the computer starts itself. Once this happens, disconnect one device from the computer, shutdown the computer, and then see whether the computer starts itself. Repeat this procedure until the computer stops restarting itself. At this time, you will know the device causing the problem. At this point, you may wish to conduct some research on the internet to determine whether any other people are experiencing the same issue. Alternatively, if you could contact me again with the exact device causing the issue then I can conduct further research into determining why this may be happening.

In the event that the computer continues to start itself even with all devices disconnected, it may be worthwhile consulting the manual for your motherboard, as some computers come with advanced features such as scheduled power-on (allowing the computer to automatically turn on at a certain time). This may be set through the BIOS or, more commonly, such features are set through Windows using a utility provided with the motherboard (for user friendliness). Should you still have no luck, please contact me again for further advice.

Regarding the problem of the computer restarting in response to completing a particular operation on the computer, such as clicking the “Copy” button in Nero, I would consider this a separate problem to the impromptu starting of the computer. The root cause of this problem is most likely a conflict between those affected applications and something else running on the computer. For our experiments, we can use Nero as the test case since this software has a definite trigger for the behaviour, being clicking the “Copy” button. We need to first determine whether the problem is caused by a program or process running in the background. Restart the computer and then close any running programs. Once this has been done, we need to close any hidden processes running in the background. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to open the Task Manager. In the window that appears, click the “Processes” tab. Click the “User Name” heading to sort the processes list by user name (if this column is not visible, go to the “View” menu > “Select Columns” > “User Name”. Close any non-essential processes running under your user name. You should be able to close all the processes running under your user name except ?explorer.exe? (the Windows graphical user interface) and ?taskmgr.exe? (the Windows Task Manager). Once this has been completed, check whether the problem continues with Nero. If not, one of these processes was causing the problem. In this situation, restart the computer (so all the processes restart themselves), close one process, check whether the problem persists. If the problem does continue, close another process, and then check again. Continue this process until you have determined the problematic process. At this stage, conduct some research to determine whether this is a known problem with Nero conflicting with the other process. If you do find any conclusive evidence, then please contact me again with the process causing the conflict. Additionally, any information on other programs which also cause the computer to restart would assist in the diagnosis. However, if closing all background processes does not resolve the issue, then the conflict may be between Nero and Windows itself. In that case, please contact me again for further advice.