BleepingComputer.com: Dell XPS M1530 with Vista Home Premium keeps restarting on its own!

hi, i have a Dell M1530 laptop with Vista Home Premium and i got it last summer. i never used it on the internet for the first bit, then my sister borrowed it to email some pictures (its first trip online) then i took it with me to a hotel with free internet (second online trip) and when i tried putting it on standby it kept turning back on, even when i shut it down. after about the 3rd or 4th time it finally stayed off. then we finally moved back home where we have highspeed, and its still doing it!!!

whenever it has new updates i let it install them when i shut it down and my brother (who is a computer technician) found a bogus virus software on my tray, so he removed it thinking that would fix the problem and he went back to the city, but it keeps turning back on still.

so ya, i dont know anything about computers, it doesnt run in the family haha just my one brother got it, so if anyones answers are too "techy" for me to understand, i'll just copy and paste it to wordpad and save it, put up with the problem til my brother gets back and show him.

thanks!

Please describe exactly how you shut it down. Do you use standby or hibernate? What are your Energysaver settings set to?

Hi Moosh,

I'll try not to sound to technical for you, but if you're not sure you trust yourself I'd say wait for your bro. I'm not on my Vista machine at work, so I'm going to try to walk you through the steps by memory. Here goes...

The problem might be related to the power settings on your NIC or your wireless modem. Do you plug your computer in to get internet connection, or just use wireless?

If you go to the start menu and right click on "Computer" you should see an option that says "Manage". Click on that option. Your computer management console will come up and you should see an option for Device Manager. Click on that option and you should see all of the devices on your computer, including "Network adapters" which is what you want. You most likely have two options under Network adapters, so try this with them both. This time you're going to right click and choose properties. On the properties screen, you should see "Power Management" as one of the tabs at the top. When you choose that power management option, you want to see if there is something that says "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standy" or something along those lines. If that option has a check mark, remove it and then also remove any check marks that will allow the computer to turn that device off. You will want to repeat this step for the other device under "Network adapters" as well to make sure that your computer will work properly if you're connected with wireless or hard line.

I hope this works, and if not I'm sorry if your time has been squandered.

EBH

Garmanma, i usually use standby, but lately i've been shutting it down

When i use standby, it will restart most of the time, like %85 of the time. when i use shut down it does it about %50 of the time. when i leave my computer on, it will put itself to sleep, then restart right away and show a black screen that tells me it wasn't shut down properly and gives me options to restart in safe mode or normal mode. normal mode is always highlighted and theres a count down timer for the highlighted mode to be selected. so i just press enter to choose normal mode. it has only done this when i've left my computer alone, and not when i've promted it to standby or shut down.

Eric RBA,

i use wireless, we have a 2wire router on our desktop.

when i go into my network adapters, my 2 options are: "Dell Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card" and "Marvell Yukon 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller" the power management options for both have the box for "Allow the Computer to turn this device off to save power" checked and "Allow this device to wake the computer" is NOT checked.

thanks for the help, but i think the problem is somewhere else, any ideas?

Is this just a recent issue?
Are there any events that coincide with restarts?(Right click My Computer > Manage > Computer Management > System Tools > Event Viewer > then click System.)
Does the PC seem to be running hotter than before the problem?
What were you doing the last time it restarted?
How often do the restarts happen?

Sorry for the ton of questions

Aorp,

No, its been happening since the beginning of october when i got it back from my sister. to my knowledge its only done it when theres an online source nearby. but i've disconnnected from my network and then put it on standby or shut it down and it restarts again, and reconnects to the network.

i dont understand the events page thingy, thats something for my brother to look at

it has been running hotter when i play games, it gets so hot that i have to quit because it starts to get uncomfortable on my wrists but i am very sensitive to temperatures, and i assumed it was normal due to the aluminum body. so i try to shut it down to let it cool off, sometimes it stays off and sometimes it restarts.

the last time it restarted, i was trying to shut it down.

the frequency of the restarts, i have detailed in my previous posts.

i hope thats sufficient information for you to identify the problem, sorry i couldnt provide any more

Have you tried blowing out the vents on the laptop with canned air? Don't use an air compressor (too powerful) or a vacuum cleaner (too much static electricity).

i will try the canned air once we get some, our store where we get it is flooded and closed right now