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OptiPlex 755 mysteriously turns itself on
I recently purchased a Dell OptiPlex 755 computer and am having a mysterious power on issue. Although it came with 32 bit Vista Business, I installed the 64 bit version. Ever since I've had the computer (approximately 1 month), the following issue occurs (not everytime but frequently):
- Cold boot PC and use it normally
- At the end of the day, click Start | Shutdown
- PC shuts down and turns off.
- A few seconds to a few minutes later, the PC powers on itself but never boots to Windows. Instead, receive a blank, black screen on the monitor and the fan is really loud (sounds like the PC is going to take off). Along with the power button, only the numbers "3" and "4" are lit green. If you press and hold the power button in, the machine shuts off for approximately five seconds and then powers on again going right back to the blank black screen, etc. etc. It stays in this loop until I press and hold the power key and as soon as it powers off, I remove the power cable from the back of the machine. Once I leave the power cable disconnected a few seconds, plug it back it, the machine will boot to Windows just fine.
This is the strangest thing I've seen. Admitedly, I have not yet contacted Dell as I have tried to figure out the sequence of events that consistently puts the machine in this state.
I welcome any and all ideas regarding this matter.
Hydralisk00222
2.4K Posts
1
May 5th, 2008 16:00
Make sure wake on lan in bios is off...
this happened to me as well but it stopped as time passed... couldn't figure out the underlying cause.
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
May 5th, 2008 23:00
sukebe65
25 Posts
1
May 9th, 2008 19:00
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
May 10th, 2008 14:00
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
May 13th, 2008 10:00
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
May 26th, 2008 22:00
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
May 26th, 2008 22:00
eboe
7 Posts
1
July 31st, 2008 12:00
Cool, thanks. The one difference we have is that we are running XP Pro, but realistically, the problem seems to be there regardless of the OS, and therefore it has to be a BIOS problem or something in the power staging on the motherboards, or possibly, the chipset. Ugh.
Thansk for the quick reply as I am getting ready to head out to a client with the problem and I am 90% sure we have already flashed all the motherboards. I might try unplugging the UPSes if they are plugged into the USB ports, and report back to you as well. Together we can lick this problem, or make Dell lick it for us ;)
Gary
eboe
7 Posts
1
July 31st, 2008 12:00
TripleHWestern
7 Posts
1
July 31st, 2008 12:00
jpayette
1 Message
1
February 19th, 2009 11:00
We bought 64 Optiplex 755s and installed 22 of them with vista 32 bit and the rest with xp sp3. We have not had a single mysterious restart with windows xp but the vista ones randomly restart nd go through the same sequence you describe. Power button and numbers 3 and 4 are lit and if you try to restart with the power button it starts to loop through the sequence again. Only way to stop it is to unplug and then when you replug it in it will boot fine. Bios 11 and 12 are both affected. I turned off wake on lan but it hasnt made a difference. I have called Dell twice and not gotten anywhere with this. The strange thing is it has not happened on a single xp gx755...only the vista ones.
Im at a loss on this
PerryM4305
1 Message
0
March 9th, 2009 19:00
Has anyone had any further thoughts/developements regarding this disturbing behaviour ?
I ask as we have a classroom of these, all with WOL disabled, bioses varying between A09 and A13 (the O/S is immaterial, they do not get as far as booting) and it really is disconcerting to see and hear them momentarily powering themselves up then down again. Especially after hours in a dark and otherwise empty classroom. I've taken to powering the room down from the main cut-off switch ! Which seems to upset others who have left projects running...
sirihi
1 Message
2
March 18th, 2009 08:00
OK. I had this rather annoying problem on a 755 i bought off ebay running WinXP. I'm using the latest BIOS version. The cause of this problem is nothing to do with OS version or the wake-on-lan in either the bios or in the OS settings. It is caused by the Intel AMT (active management technology) built into the motherboard. You can google this to find out about it, but essentially it allows remote lights-out management. By default it seems to be activated with it's own WOL settings enabled. The simplest thing to do (unless you want to delve in to this feature) is to simply disable it. When the dell switches on you should see an option to enter the MEBx bios by pressing CTRL + P (you'll see it in the top right hand corner of your screen). This is a separate BIOS from the normal one. Once you're in this the first thing to do is to set a password - not that simple because it is ultra fussy about the strength - it has to contain caps, lowercase, numbers and a symbol such as an exclamation mark (underscore doesn't count!). Once you've done that there is an option in the menu to simply disable the whole IAMT feature. This will stop the "mysterious" wake-up's! If you want further info on the MEBx bios features, just search!
Hope this helps!
wdebraal
2 Posts
0
July 27th, 2009 16:00
We have seen this behavior with Optiplex 960 models running Vista32. We have tracked this down to several factors which include the Dell SoundMax driver on a system with Faronics Deep Freeze Seed (Built from Deepfreeze Enterprise Console version 6.41.220.1973). SoundMax driver 6.10.x.5851 or 6.10.x.5853. If we remove either of these the system will behave normally. If we shut down the server running the Deep Freeze console the systems behave normally. If we disable the wake on LAN functionality in the BIOS or in the OS on any system it will behave normally. We are still looking into this and have no explanation as to why this is happening. I would uninstall
the SoundMax driver and see if this makes any difference.
izodmartin
1 Message
0
August 6th, 2009 12:00
I ran across this issue several times. It seems by replacing the front panel I/O board (the one with the USB front USB connectors) the issue goes away.