Mysterious Sleep Activity in computer Tower

Myself | 12/31/2015 | Me

[ConservativeMind]

I would download a self-booting antivirus rescue disk to run an uninfected antivirus program against your volumes. Almost all AV companies have these and generally they are free.

I would suggest Avira’s bootable Linux CD image. They keep the signatures updated several times a day for the rescue AV image.

[Bob434]

[[Just a wild guess, but some computers can be configured to wake up when either USB or network activity is detected. Perhaps something is “pinging” your computer and causing it to wake up to handle it. ]]

That’s what I was wondering- Would a printer in the off mode still ping the computer? We just installed a new laser printer not too long ago (And I can’t remember if the problem was happening before- I think it was but can’t be sure) I suppose the way to tell is to unplug printer completely

[[Check your BIOS configuration for something like “Wake on LAN”.]]

I will, but nothing other than the printer install has changed on the computer- no updates recently, nothing really-

[Covenantor]

Have you checked Remote Access settings? It allows access to your computer from anywhere.

Default setting is off, but ....see article below for info.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff404238.aspx

good luck

[Bob434]

[[I just figure it is NSA gathering up all of my daily computing activities.

Sometimes, the modem/router lights are flashing at a rapid pace.]]

Lol, I thought the same thing- who knows- maybe it’s that- Like Megan said, I’m going to try disconnecting the router at night see if that stops it

[[I notice with System Restore that Windows had recent installed ‘critical updates’ even though updates are turned off.]]

See this is the junk that makes people distrust MS- I’ll have to check my updates- I haven’t’ done an update for a couple weeks now- so there shouldn’t be anything new there-

[Bob434]

[[I notice with System Restore that Windows had recent installed ‘critical updates’ even though updates are turned off.]]

Windows 10 is getting really aggressive- they are practically forcing people into accepting it- and once it’s on, it’s really hard to stop all the spyware crud they use- you really have to jump through hoops to stop them from tracking your internet activity, and even then after changing several settings, they STILL track you when you use the search feature and send the info to Ms even when you tell them not to-

This is the main reason I still use windows 7- but they are even, like you said, forcing updates on windows 7 users even htioguh we don’t use autoupdates-

[Bob434]

[[Maybe the computer had to wake up to go pee during its sleep. It happens in older life forms.]]

Must be why my keyboard is wet every time?

[varon]

I have found my cat’s march across the keyboard having some very unusual affects on the sleep mode..............

[Bob434]

[[Sleep mode is evil. Turn all your energystar crap off. Cycling the power like sleep mode does is worse for product longevity than leaving it powered 24/7.]]

But if I leave it on how am I going to know when something nefarious is happening? The fans are always running when on- but when sleeping, the fans shouldn’t be running- so when they do-
I know something is wrong :)

Yeah I’m not worried about the energy saving- I used sleep more for turning off the computer and not allowing internet activity (I’m not sure that is correct- but I thought it was) than anything else- The only other thing I worry about is the computer overheating during night due to fan failure if I leave it on-

[Bob434]

Thanks Covenator- I just disabled it- I’ll have to see later tonight whether it works- I’ve also copied and pasted that info to my ‘windows tip’ file- even if it doesn’t work I’ll be denying remote access now- didn’t realize that was even there-

[Norm Lenhart]

The best you can hope for in todays tech world is to have the best virus scanners on board and running.

Tha NSA’s Crays will blow by them at will because you OS is backdoored and they have been since about Win 95 if not earlier. ut virus checkers catch most/all bots. It sucks but thats just how it is. Look at it this way. You have a problem now with the method you used failing you. It will fail you again.

[Bob434]

[[Avira’s bootable Linux CD image. They keep the signatures updated several times a day for the rescue AV image.]]

Thanks- That is a good idea- I’ll check that one out- sounds like an os with an antivirus- sounds useful-

[Covenantor]

glad I could help. Still might be something lurking within, but at leadt you’ll know that you turned it off. If Remote access gets turned back on it’s a nasty in there somewhere.

Have a happy New Year!

[Bob434]

[[ It sucks but thats just how it is.]]

I know, I was just talking with my friend about this last night- people just aint happy unless they are making other people miserable by ruining the computing experience for people-

[[You have a problem now with the method you used failing you. It will fail you again.]]

Unless it has to do with the printer installation- although I’m not sure it does- Wondering if a failing PS unit or video card or something could be causing the weirdness too? Prbably not though- like you say- probably internet related somehow- virus, or whatever-

[roamer_1]

I did run Norton’s nothing showed up- worst comes to worst I do run rollbackRX and can do a revert to months ago-

Norton Sucks.

DL Malwarebytes and install it (free version)... Run that through it and see.

If you get a lot, Kaspersky's AVPTool (RTFM) or EmsiSoft's EEK (both are cleanup engines) might find even more.

And if that's the case, ditch Norton and use Kaspersky's AntiVirus (not Internet Security), or Eset's Nod32 Anti-virus.

Another angle - I am told the latest KBs from MS have implemented the same PhoneHome stuff into 7 as is in Win10... I wonder if the bad behavior coincides with a particular Update session...

[Bob434]

[[If Remote access gets turned back on it’s a nasty in there somewhere.]]

Yup- I’ll keep checking it- thanks for the suggestion

Have a happy New Year!

[SkyDancer]

Is there a tech forum here?

[Bob434]

[[Another angle - I am told the latest KBs from MS have implemented the same PhoneHome stuff into 7 as is in Win10... ]]

Yeah see that’s what I wondered as well- like the poster above said ,they had autoupdates turned off and MS downloaded stuff to their computer anyways

It almost acts like a phone home thing- it will start, with monitor still in sleep mode , run for a bit, then shut back down- Suspicious to say the least- I wouldn’t even know where to look except at recent updates- I don’t have autoupdates enabled- an I stopped the windows 10 nag update when I did the update awhile ago- they snuck in the nag screen update- had to learn how to uninstall it and hide the update from showing anymore-

We used to worry about hackers ruining our computing experience, now it seems like MS is becoming a bunch of hackers themselves- changing settings in our computers without our permission or knowledge

[time4good]

Download and run Combofix.exe from bleepingcomputer.com - best I’ve found for slitting malbot throats.

Download and install Glasswire - great background monitor that tells you what tried to go out the wire. Do the sleep thing and then see what it logged. You’ll find your culprit.

[Bob434]

I looked when posting, but general chat and computer forum is about it- I posted it to both-

[tophat9000]

If you want to see if you have traffic in and out to the Internet while you computer asleep..ie tap the wire...

get a dumb hub (not a switch, switch's filter to each port via mac address ) and put it between your pc and the Internet router... the connect another pc on same hub running wireshark..(its free)....you can the sniff all the traffic on the wire/lan segment