the Schedulaer, Wake the computer to run this task

  • Thread starter Thread starter micky
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micky

From the start I've ignored the Scheduler, but in the last few months,
if the PC running XP SP3 has been off, then every morning it has been
turning on.

I assumed this was because one or more scheduled tasks were set for
"Wake the computer to run this task " but I read on a webpage something
that implied that this only wakes it from sleep. Mine is almost always
in Hiberation. Will it still wake it?

Only 3 tasks have "Wake the computer to run this task " checked, and
those are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 10AM, and Sunday at 7PM,
to record various radio shows**. The computer starts up much earlier
than 10AM.

I know you'll tell me to disable all the scheduled tasks, but before I
do that, does anything in my story ring a bell? I'm not asking you to
hunt for a webpage, just what you already know.


Actually, this auto startup didn't happen until I tried for the first
time to understand the Scheduler. I saw that something, not me, had set
the update program for some program ( (maybe AppleSoftwareUpdate) to
run every 10 minutes every day as long as I was logged on. For a
program that had updates maybe every 2 months, and for which I didn't
care if I had the most recent update anyhow. Wow!

So instead of every 10 minutes I changed it to once a month. I don't
see how that could make the computer start every morning, before I wake
up, but that seems to be when it started.

Thanks.


**Diane Rehm's Friday wrap-up, Car Talk, and the Big Broadcast.
 
micky said:
From the start I've ignored the Scheduler, but in the last few months,
if the PC running XP SP3 has been off, then every morning it has been
turning on.

A setting in BIOS can cause the computer to wake, like "Wake on LAN"
(power up when a network packet addresses your computer).
I assumed this was because one or more scheduled tasks were set for
"Wake the computer to run this task " but I read on a webpage something
that implied that this only wakes it from sleep. Mine is almost always
in Hiberation. Will it still wake it?

Yep. That's just another sleep (low power) mode.
Only 3 tasks have "Wake the computer to run this task " checked, and
those are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 10AM, and Sunday at 7PM,
to record various radio shows**. The computer starts up much earlier
than 10AM.

Check the BIOS for "wake on" events.
I saw that something, not me, had set the update program for some
program ( (maybe AppleSoftwareUpdate) to run every 10 minutes every
day as long as I was logged on. For a program that had updates
maybe every 2 months, and for which I didn't care if I had the most
recent update anyhow. Wow!

Programs don't run in hibernation mode. The computer powers down to a
low-power state (the mobo can still powered up the power supply) and
system memory has been copied into a file. On wake up, that file is
read back into memory so it was just like it was before. Nothing runs
unless it is loaded into memory.
So instead of every 10 minutes I changed it to once a month. I don't
see how that could make the computer start every morning, before I wake
up, but that seems to be when it started.

Something else is causing the "wake on" event. It could be in the BIOS
as a "wake on <something" event or it could be a timer the OS schedules
in the BIOS to wake the computer at that time.

Not all scheduled events are visible in the Task Scheduler application.
Events added, say, by using the 'at' command won't appear in Task
Scheduler. Open a shell (cmd.exe aka command prompt with admin
privileges) and run "at" (sans quotes and with no parameters) to list
what jobs were scheduled using it.

I was hoping that the following commands ran in shell might work:

mkdir C:\Temp
schtasks /query /v > c:\temp\scheds.txt
notepad c:\temp\scheds.txt

Alas, I found out that schtasks.exe display most of the attributes of a
scheduled task but not all of them, and one of them not included was the
"wake" attribute. Doh!

Then I found out about the powercfg parameter of -lastwake. Running
"powercfg -lastwake" in a shell shows what event last woke the computer.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748940(v=WS.10).aspx
describes the parameters you can use for the powercfg.exe utility. It
describes the option as:

-lastwake: Reports information about the event that woke the computer
from the last sleep transition.

See if that works. If you configured the USB mouse to wake the
computer, the -lastwake output (stdout) in the shell will look something
like:

Wake history count - 1
Wake history [0]
Wake source count - 1
Wake source [0]
Type: Device
Instance path: USB/Root_Hubxx\<someID>
Friendly name:
Description: USB Root Hub
Manufacturer: (Standard USB Host Controller)

To view which devices are configured to wake the computer, run:

powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

For me, it lists the PS/2 keyboard and HID-compliant (USB) mouse.

You said the computer always wakes at the same time. It's doubtful that
the mouse click or a keypress occurs at the same time every day. To see
what scheduled tasks have wake timers, run:

powercfg -waketimers

You need to run a shell (cmd.exe) or log into a Windows account with
admin privileges; else, powercfg will bitch that you need to be an
admin. For me, only 1 event is listed for the Acronis True Image
scheduler so it load backup jobs defined in that scheduler, I'd prefer
they reuse Task Scheduler in Windows since nothing they define for an
event in their scheduler couldn't be handled by the Windows scheduler.

It's also possible you missed an event in the GUI Task Scheduler program
as there may be pre-configured scheduled events even in a fresh install
of the OS. Task Scheduler was much easier to view back in Windows XP
than it is in Windows 7 that I'm using now. The -waketimers parameter
to powercfg might show you a scheduled event that you missed when using
the GUI tools for Task Scheduler.
 
micky said:
From the start I've ignored the Scheduler, but in the last few months,
if the PC running XP SP3 has been off, then every morning it has been
turning on.

I assumed this was because one or more scheduled tasks were set for
"Wake the computer to run this task " but I read on a webpage something
that implied that this only wakes it from sleep. Mine is almost always
in Hiberation. Will it still wake it?

Only 3 tasks have "Wake the computer to run this task " checked, and
those are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 10AM, and Sunday at 7PM,
to record various radio shows**. The computer starts up much earlier
than 10AM.

I know you'll tell me to disable all the scheduled tasks, but before I
do that, does anything in my story ring a bell? I'm not asking you to
hunt for a webpage, just what you already know.


Actually, this auto startup didn't happen until I tried for the first
time to understand the Scheduler. I saw that something, not me, had set
the update program for some program ( (maybe AppleSoftwareUpdate) to
run every 10 minutes every day as long as I was logged on. For a
program that had updates maybe every 2 months, and for which I didn't
care if I had the most recent update anyhow. Wow!

So instead of every 10 minutes I changed it to once a month. I don't
see how that could make the computer start every morning, before I wake
up, but that seems to be when it started.

Thanks.

From a Southbridge datasheet...

"The RTC also supports a date alarm that allows for scheduling
a wake up event up to 30 days in advance, rather than just
24 hours in advance"

So it looks like the alarm register on the RTC, doesn't support
alarming all the way to the end of time. It has a relatively
short event horizon. I think your monthly event likely just
fits under this limitation. If you went past 30 days, the computer
might have to wake monthly, to figure out whether "it is time yet"
or not.

*******

I find a variety of answers with respect to waking from S3/S4/S5.
S3 is sleep. S4 is hibernate. S5 is soft off. Apparently some
motherboards could not wake from S5, so if you were setting
a waking event like a date, then you'd want to hibernate
the machine, rather than selecting shutdown from the
Windows menu. The more modern the chipset, the more
complex they make this stuff (more likely to include S5,
but have even deeper power states).

Someone here, got the computer to "go back to sleep", by setting
"Away Mode" in the BIOS. Your computer may continue to misbehave,
but with Away Mode, you're less likely to find it awake when you
get there. I would have thought the OS would have a way to implement
this as well... But that'll be harder to figure out :-)

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...eep-after-one-wake-event-network-driver-issue

Paul
 
Thanks for the reply, and thanks Paul too. No specific replies to you,
Paul, except to say that I just clicked on the link you gave, but
seeral replies to Vanguard.

A setting in BIOS can cause the computer to wake, like "Wake on LAN"
(power up when a network packet addresses your computer).

Last I looked, a year or two ago, I didn't have anything like that in
the BIOS
Yep. That's just another sleep (low power) mode.

Ah, good.
Check the BIOS for "wake on" events.

Last I looked, a year or two ago, I didn't have anything like that in
the BIOS. I certainly have not modified the BIOS directly, Or
ntentionally modified it indirectly, if that is possible. . Can it be
changed by doing something while in Windows? (Answered by you, below.)
Programs don't run in hibernation mode. The computer powers down to a
low-power state (the mobo can still powered up the power supply) and
system memory has been copied into a file. On wake up, that file is
read back into memory so it was just like it was before. Nothing runs
unless it is loaded into memory.
Okay.


Something else is causing the "wake on" event. It could be in the BIOS
as a "wake on <something" event or it could be a timer the OS schedules
in the BIOS to wake the computer at that time.

The second half of your sentence answers my question above.
Not all scheduled events are visible in the Task Scheduler application.
Events added, say, by using the 'at' command won't appear in Task
Scheduler. Open a shell (cmd.exe aka command prompt with admin
privileges) and run "at" (sans quotes and with no parameters) to list
what jobs were scheduled using it.

Okay. It says: There are no entries in the list.
I was hoping that the following commands ran in shell might work:

mkdir C:\Temp
schtasks /query /v > c:\temp\scheds.txt
notepad c:\temp\scheds.txt

Alas, I found out that schtasks.exe display most of the attributes of a
scheduled task but not all of them, and one of them not included was the
"wake" attribute. Doh!
;-)

Then I found out about the powercfg parameter of -lastwake. Running
"powercfg -lastwake" in a shell shows what event last woke the computer.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748940(v=WS.10).aspx
describes the parameters you can use for the powercfg.exe utility. It
describes the option as:

-lastwake: Reports information about the event that woke the computer
from the last sleep transition.

See if that works.

It says: Invalid parameters. Try /? for help.

And when I do that, I get a nice list, part of which I copied at the
end, but nothing that resembles -lastwake except for what you describe
next.

I should have sadi that this is a Dell, pretty old, Dimension 4600 or
4700, but you've given me plenty of pathways to pursue this, so lack of
this and -waketimers below won't be a problem.
If you configured the USB mouse to wake the
computer,

I never did that intentionally, and the mouse won't wake the computer
from Hibernate. Only the on/off button will. The mouse will wake it
from Sleep, after a few movements. I don't use Sleep much but I usually
use a mouse key to awaken.
the -lastwake output (stdout) in the shell will look something
like:

Wake history count - 1
Wake history [0]
Wake source count - 1
Wake source [0]
Type: Device
Instance path: USB/Root_Hubxx\<someID>
Friendly name:
Description: USB Root Hub
Manufacturer: (Standard USB Host Controller)

To view which devices are configured to wake the computer, run:

powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

I can't expect that to give the mystery answer right now, because the
last computer startup was by me, and not by the computer. But I will
do it the next time the computer starts on its own.
For me, it lists the PS/2 keyboard and HID-compliant (USB) mouse.

For me, it says HID-compliant (USB) mouse <001>

It doesn't mention the keyboard, which is USB.
You said the computer always wakes at the same time. It's doubtful that

It always wakes after 1AM and before I get up, let's say before 7:30,
but I don't know exactly what time or times it does so.
the mouse click or a keypress occurs at the same time every day. To see
what scheduled tasks have wake timers, run:

powercfg -waketimers

Also says: Invalid parameters.
You need to run a shell (cmd.exe) or log into a Windows account with
admin privileges; else, powercfg will bitch that you need to be an
admin. For me, only 1 event is listed for the Acronis True Image
scheduler so it load backup jobs defined in that scheduler, I'd prefer
they reuse Task Scheduler in Windows since nothing they define for an
event in their scheduler couldn't be handled by the Windows scheduler.

I understand.
It's also possible you missed an event in the GUI Task Scheduler program
as there may be pre-configured scheduled events even in a fresh install
of the OS. Task Scheduler was much easier to view back in Windows XP
than it is in Windows 7 that I'm using now.

I think I came across Win7 when searching the web for stuff about this.
The page didn't even bother to say it was win7 or whatever, but Taxk
Scheduler had 3 panes and was much different.
The -waketimers parameter
to powercfg might show you a scheduled event that you missed when using
the GUI tools for Task Scheduler.

Here are the /Devicequery options. I plan to try them all tomorrow.
There are other parms that come earlier in the list that don't seem
related. I'll look at them again tomorrow.

Thanks again.

/DEVICEQUERY <queryflags> will return a list of devices that meet
the criteria specified in <queryflags>. Possible values for
<queryflags> are:
wake_from_S1_supported - return all devices that support
waking the system from a light sleep state.
wake_from_S2_supported - return all devices that support
waking the system from a deeper sleep state.
wake_from_S3_supported - return all devices that support
waking from the deepest sleep state.
wake_from_any - return all devices that support waking
from any sleep state.
S1_supported - list devices supporting light sleep states.
S2_supported - list devices supporting deeper sleep.
S3_supported - list devices supporting deepest sleep.
S4_supported - list devices supporting system hibernation.
wake_programmable - list devices that are
user-configurable to wake the system from a sleep sate.
wake_armed - list devices that are currently configured to
wake the system from any sleep state.
all_devices - return all devices present in the system.
all_devices_verbose - return verbose list of devices.
/DEVICEENABLEWAKE <devicename> enable the device to wake the system
from a sleep state. <devicename> is a device retrieved using the
'/DEVICEQUERY wake_programmable' parameter.
/DEVICEDISABLEWAKE <devicename> disable the device from waking the
system from a sleep state. <devicename> is a device retrieved using the
'/DEVICEQUERY wake_armed' parameter.
/HELP, /? Displays information on command-line parameters.

Examples:
POWERCFG /LIST
POWERCFG /QUERY scheme
POWERCFG /QUERY
POWERCFG /CREATE scheme
POWERCFG /DELETE scheme
POWERCFG /SETACTIVE scheme
POWERCFG /CHANGE scheme /monitor-timeout-dc 15
POWERCFG /CHANGE scheme /monitor-timeout-dc 0
POWERCFG /HIBERNATE on
POWERCFG /EXPORT scheme /file file
POWERCFG /QUERY number /NUMERICAL
POWERCFG /GLOBALPOWERFLAG on /OPTION BATTERYICON
POWERCFG /AVAILABLESLEEPSTATES
POWERCFG /BATTERYALARM low
POWERCFG /BATTERYALARM critical /ACTIVATE on /LEVEL 6 /ACTION
hibernate
POWERCFG /DEVICEQUERY wake_armed
POWERCFG /DEVICEENABLEWAKE "Microsoft USB IntelliMouse Explorer"
 
I schedule a defrag and I usually do that for the early hours.
Did you do something like that?
 
OldGuy said:
I schedule a defrag and I usually do that for the early hours.
Did you do something like that?

Doesn't that add a scheduled event in Task Scheduler?
 
Nothing scheduled for early hours
Doesn't that add a scheduled event in Task Scheduler?

I would think so.

I looked at all the items in the TScheduler, and most were updaters,
scheduled for the afternoon or evening.



Thanks ot all of you, especially you Vanguard. You've given me enough
to work on for a while. I plan to get back to you when I find the
problem. (I hope I don't let this drop like I did a few months ago,
when I didn't even ask any questions.)
 
I don't remember a mobo's BIOS that didn't have a "wake on" option. Did

It had that. I just mean it wasn't checked.
you look or just going by memory? It's likely under a BIOS config
screen you never reviewed.


Apparently powercfg.exe in Windows XP doesn't support that parameter.
Too bad. Utilities often get fixed or enhanced with each version of
Windows.


Then it is not enabled as a device to wake the computer. I only gave
examples of what it reported for *me*.
Right.


Run "net statistics server". The "Statistics since ..." line tells you
when the current instance of Windows was started.

Next time I'll run it first thing in the morning. This time I started
the computer, not the mystery starter. This is what it says now!

Sessions accepted 1
Sessions timed-out 0
Sessions errored-out 0

Kilobytes sent 0
Kilobytes received 0

Mean response time (msec) 0

System errors 0
Permission violations 0
Password violations 0

Files accessed 0
Communication devices accessed 0
Print jobs spooled 0

Times buffers exhausted

Big buffers 0
Request buffers 0

The command completed successfully.


As an alternative,
load Task Manager, go to its Performance tab, and there is an uptime
counter there (i.e., how many days:hours:minutes:seconds).

Next time. This time I started the computer, not the mystery starter.
Guess the Windows XP version of powercfg isn't up to the task of finding
the wake timers defined in the scheduled tasks.


I thought the computer was powering up at the same time every day which

I sort of think so too, but I don't know it. Maybe I should get up
really early and wait for it to start, like waiting for a burglar, or a
kid whose been out all night.
would be representative of a wake timer. A device waking the computer
would occur at sporadic times, like the cat walking on the desk and
pushing the mouse, rather than at the same time each day.

Since it comes up at unknown times, you'll have to use the above methods
to see when the computer powered up to see if it is at the same time
every day. Scheduled events or wake times set in the mobo would wake
the computer at the same time everyday or whenever it was scheduled.
The "wake on" BIOS events occur on an event, like a network request sent
to the IP address of your host, and that could occur at sporadic times.

Could a network be sending me requests? AFAIK my only networks are my
in-my-home router, PC, laptop, and printer. And the internet.
 
micky said:
Next time I'll run it first thing in the morning. This time I started
the computer, not the mystery starter. This is what it says now ...

The output should be:

Server Statistics for \\ZODIAC

Statistics since 12/21/2014 5:29:42 PM

(followed by all the other stats you showed).

The "Statistics" line tells you when the computer came up.
Could a network be sending me requests? AFAIK my only networks are my
in-my-home router, PC, laptop, and printer. And the internet.

Only if you have the "Wake on LAN" option enabled in the BIOS.

Also go into Device Management (devmgmt.msc) and look at the power
management properties of your network adapter. It may have an option
"Allow this device to wake the computer". Disable it and retest.
 
The output should be:

Server Statistics for \\ZODIAC

Statistics since 12/21/2014 5:29:42 PM

(followed by all the other stats you showed).

The "Statistics" line tells you when the computer came up.


Only if you have the "Wake on LAN" option enabled in the BIOS.

Also go into Device Management (devmgmt.msc) and look at the power
management properties of your network adapter. It may have an option
"Allow this device to wake the computer". Disable it and retest.

Already disabled.

If I don't get this solved before March, I'll get back to you after May
20th.

Thanks again.
 
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