PC restarts on shutdown and powers on as soon as plug power is switched on.

[Infamous888]

Hi there, I have been trying to solve an issue with my girlfriend's PC. The PC restarts on shut down, and turns on as soon as plug power is switched on.

The computer won't stay off unless you turn off the plug power. It is booting into windows (windows 7), but has occasionally reset the default resolution on startup (huge ass icons man).

I have replaced the motherboard battery,

Searched the bios and confirmed that it is not set to power on after a power trip/power outage,

I have disabled "fast boot" in the bios,

I have checked and confirmed that there is no "wake on lan" or similar option active in the bios.

I have booted the pc with no peripherals attached,

I have also disabled an option within Windows which makes the system reboot if windows crashes (i suspected windows may be crashing during shut down, and consequently restarting, but that doesn't seem to be the case.)

The power supply being used is only a few months old, as I replaced that for her recently.

The motherboard is also relatively new.

The ram is very new.

I haven't tested these components yet though (I'm really lazy, I'm sorry 🙁 )

The system doesn't have a graphics card as that died a while back.


If you can think of anything that could be causing it, I'd be very greatfull.

 

[the nerd 389]

What PSU, case, and motherboard?

 

[EvilHamster]

First, try disconnecting the HDD. Try to plug it in. See if it starts up.

Then, try a different OS for testing purposes. Make a bootable Linux DVD (install dvd, for example linux mint has it, don't install yet, just boot it up), or USB if you can. Restart it with that. Indeed, if you can, start with only Linux (disconnect the windows HDD). See if that does anything.

Finally (and you could lead with that) make an alternative Linux partition. If your Windows install is fresh, just make a sole Linux install.

If it keeps rebooting with Linux as well (try a few times), we can narrow things down a bit. If it's fixed with Linux, it clearly is a Windows issue.

Cheers.