Why did Precision 7760 turn itself on?

In the Bios, under Power, there is an option of Lid Switch | Power On Lid Open | When enabled, this setting allows the system to power up from the off state whenever the list is opened. This system will power on when powered by the AC adapter or by the system battery.

This is off by default on my system. Is this off or on? If on, maybe it triggers power on when closing the lid.

Also, I have Dell Optimizer installed and I do not see any setting that would control this.

 

Thanks Mike. The first time it happened I had closed the lid, but this last time the lid was untouched (open) overnight when it happened. For good measure though I looked and Lid Switch was already set to "Off" under bios power options.

I did have "Wake on Dell USB-C Dock" set to "On" but I don't have a Dock or anything connected to external usb-c. I set that to "Off" now as well since I can't think of anything else.

 

Well, it looks like I still didn't solve this. Happened again this morning.
I was sitting here to watch since it happened on November 18 and December 18 at exactly 8:24:11. As I sat here with it powered off from last night, all of a sudden the dell logo appeared on the laptop screen at 8:24:11 and then windows started up. Last night I had as usual gone to the start menu, Power, Shut down and watched it shut down. In the bios under System Logs, Power Event Log it shows simply:
01/18/2022 01:12:28 Power Off - ACPI power management
(from when I shut down the Dell 7760 from windows)
01/18/2022 08:24:11 Power On - Not applicable
the same line it gives for a normal power on via pressing the power button (which I did not do at 8:24:11 this morning.)

 

...Just curious, was the system on AC power when it powered on?
I am wondering if it would also happen if the AC adapter was not connected?
(No idea what to make of this otherwise, I don't have any suggestions to fix it.)

 

The 7760 user manual page 124 notes there is an auto on time in the bios. I have not checked of it is there (or just a reference in the manual that does not actually exist in the bios). The manual notes it is under Power Management,

Auto On Time

Enable to set the computer to turn on automatically every day or on a preselected date and time. This option can be configured only if the Auto On Time is set to Everyday, Weekdays or Selected Days.

Default: Disabled.

Edit: I do not see this setting in the Bios on my 7760. Maybe try factory resetting your bios and then make any changes again from there.

 

Yes, it was connected to AC power to an Eaton 5S 1500 UPS. It was connected to a different Eaton UPS when it happened before. I will try disconnecting it from AC power on February 18th as I've tried everything else. I don't know what that would mean though.

This has me perplexed.

I saw the apple no reboot bug announced, and wondered could something similar affect a new Dell laptop?

I almost wanted to go back to my old laptop and throw this one away when it turned on again this morning. It performs perfectly in every other way and I was meticulous in the setup, but can I trust it with this "turning on by itself" or is something odd going on?

The fact that it's three times in a row on the 18th day of the month at exactly 08:24:11 can't be a coincidence.

In a paranoid moment, I remember there were three specific weird bugs with this Dell 7760 from the time it was new:

1.) when I got it, the Dell installed Windows 10 operating system wasn't logging ethernet traffic correctly under Settings, Network and Internet. It was underreporting by about 50%. (I used the Dell operating system reset to reinstall and fix this issue reinstalling from the Dell cloud image. I then also installed a new samsung 980 Pro SSD and reinstalled from scratch from the Microsoft USB creation tool though, and I was specifically very careful to check the digital certificate was ok before using the Microsoft USB creation tool. So if there was something fishy about the preinstalled OS, it should have been overwritten through not only changing the SSD but also installing an OS directly from Microsoft.com)

2.) I got a bios recovered message within a week of when I first got it, recovering from image file. http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/precision-7760-bios-recovery-triggered.836628/ However, after that I manually flashed the bios a few times now with at least 3 Dell bios updates and each time I checked the checksum carefully with what appears on the dell website to be sure it was correct and I watched to make sure no other errors were reported with each bios flash.

3.) Then this issue: it turns itself on once a month at 08:24:11 with what looks like a normal turn on.

The paranoid person in me wonders could someone have actually modified the dell bios to do something? But what? And if some bad person had that kind of skill to compromise a dell bios on a new laptop in a way that subsequent bios flashes wouldn't wipe, what would be their objective? (And wouldn't other people report it by now if anything like that had happened.)

It seems like the auto power on function is the only thing I could think of that would be able to do this, but since I even toggled that to a different time and then to disable again, the Dell bios would almost have to be doing one thing and then showing me something else (Disabled) which would seem to take something super-sinister. And I would have thought that subsequent bios updates would have overwritten anything bad there, but maybe they only update specific portions and not the one containing the Auto-On function?

 

I do have this option in my 7760 Bios under "System Management" at the bottom "Auto On Time"
I tried changing it to 10:00 PM every day when I ran a test shortly before 10:00 PM a month ago. It did in fact turn the system on with a similar line logged under the bios power log as to when I hit the power button directly or when this phantom "once a month auto-on glitch" occurs.

However, I then changed this Auto On Time to Disabled Again and verified twice it's set to Disabled.

I would have thought that if something were "stuck" with "Auto On Time" that changing the time to 10:00 PM with it enabled, letting it work at 10:00 pm, and then going back into bios and setting it to disable again would have "unstuck" the 8:24:11 am time if it was a phantom entry there...

 

The Auto On Time under Bios System Management seems to be the function that would cause this, but doesn't seem to have an option to set to power on on one specific date.

Auto On has the following settings:
Disabled | Every Day | Weekdays | Select Days

and Select Days only seems to allow me to select one or multiple days of the week,
Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday

but I don't see how I could schedule it there to turn on on the 18th day of each month to duplicate this "auto on" glitch I'm seeing where it turns on only and exactly on the 18th of the month at 8:24:11. Unless I'm missing it hidden somewhere, I sure don't see where I could enter a specific date or day of the month (e.g. the 18th) to turn on.

 

If you set the current system time to 8:20am on the 18th of the month then shut the system down does it power on itself again 4 minutes later? It could make it easier to troubleshoot.

I would probably try restoring factory defaults in the bios as suggested above, re-installing all of the stock parts and factory OS image if possible, booting from a USB ubuntu live disk then shut down from it, disabling things in bios like the fingerprint scanner if you have one built into the power button, re-enable the auto-on feature so it turn on at 10pm, then also see if it still turns on at 8:24am with the feature enabled.

The best option would probably be just to get Dell on the phone so they rebuild you a replacement system. If the Dell rep here already knows about your case he can probably help you get the build expedited.

 

Do you have fast startup turned on? Maybe turn that off.