Windows 11 system randomly booting up after full shutdown

Liberty610 · July 26, 2023

Hi all. I hope someone can help me out on this one. I am running a custom built PC with Windows 11 Pro version 10.0.2261 Build 22621. As of 3 days ago, I have all the latest windows 11 updates.

I have not made any major hardware updates to this build the last 3 years or so other than swapping out a couple HDDs for new SSDs. My entire parts list can be seen here at PC Parts Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/BqHhP6

Other then a couple extra storage swap outs, the only changes recently have been Windows 11 updates. As of late, when I down a full system shut down, my PC will boot itself back up at random times. Mostly when I am not in the room to catch it doing so, but I have caught it booting itself back up a couple of times. Sometimes it stays off for hours, sometimes just a few minuets, but it does end up booting itself back up randomly. I have not had time up until recently to properly investigate, so I have been doing a full shut down, then hitting the kill switch on my PSU to prevent it from randomly booting back up.

A couple of basics to cover; I would consider myself a Windows Power user. So it's not something simple like putting it into sleep or hibernate mode and something like my mouse or keyboard waking it up. These are full system shut downs. My power button is set to do a full shut down when I press it, and I also often click on the Windows start button, then the power icon, then 'shut down'. Both methods have lead to the system shutting down, and then booting itself back up at random times.

Yesterday I hit up Google/Youtube to see if I could figure out what could be causing this. So in Windows 11's advanced power options, these are the current settings that I have that my searches said to use to try and prevent these random the boot ups:

1. Sleep settings

-Sleep after: Never (I never use sleep options)

-Allow hybrid sleeping: off

-Hibernate after: never

-Allow wake timers: Disabled

2. USB Selective suspend setting: Disabled

3. PCI Express:

-Link State Power Management: Off

In shutdown settings, I have fast start up turned off, as this was also mentioned as a possible culprit. But if I remember correctly, I have had this feature off for quite some time now, so I don't think this was the issue.

Yesterday, after making sure these settings where saved, I did another full shutdown and left my house for the day. When I came home, my system was booted up and was at the Windows log-in screen. I logged in, hit up task manager, and it said my system uptime was 11 hours plus. Based on when I left my house, that means my system stayed shut down for MAYBE an hour before booting itself back up.

My next setting attempt to prevent this has been applied in my BIOS, but I have not done a shut down yet to see if it worked. I'll be using my system for the next couple hours. I have almost all the USB ports on my board used for random peripherals and devices. So I thought maybe one of them could be triggering these random boot ups. So in my my BIOS settings for my Gigabyte X570 Xtreme board, there is a setting under the power tab called ERP. If it is disabled, the USB ports stay active after shut down. It was indeed disabled on my board, so I turned it on to shut the USB ports off when the system is shut down.

Does anyone else have any suggestions I should try if the ERP option does not prevent this? I could just keep hitting the PSU kill switch after doing the shutdowns, but I would like to avoid doing so if possible. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

AI_Must_Di3 · July 26, 2023

I had a similar thing happen to me a couple weeks ago and it drove me crazy. I would shut down and it would turn itself right back on. It turned out it was a stuck key on my keyboard, lol. Ive also had one of my external hdd's kick it back on if i didnt unplug it before shut down too. It looks like youve hit all the culprits so im not sure what is happening with yours since its so all over the place. You dont have a wake by lan setting setup in the bios do you? Do you live close to a street? Vibration of desks and the keyboard from large trucks has kicked mine on before, but my house was 8 feet from the road and the pc was a bout the same. Cars hit the house before etc... it was a crazy place to live, lol. Sold that house though years ago thankfully.

Liberty610 · July 26, 2023

1 hour ago, AI_Must_Di3 said:

I had a similar thing happen to me a couple weeks ago and it drove me crazy. I would shut down and it would turn itself right back on. It turned out it was a stuck key on my keyboard, lol. Ive also had one of my external hdd's kick it back on if i didnt unplug it before shut down too. It looks like youve hit all the culprits so im not sure what is happening with yours since its so all over the place. You dont have a wake by lan setting setup in the bios do you? Do you live close to a street? Vibration of desks and the keyboard from large trucks has kicked mine on before, but my house was 8 feet from the road and the pc was a bout the same. Cars hit the house before etc... it was a crazy place to live, lol. Sold that house though years ago thankfully.

I have a lot of USB devices. A couple of hard drives, an audio interface, Corsair keyboard/mousepad/mouse that are all RGB enabled, ect. But in order for this to trigger a system on, it's my understanding it only happens if you hibernate or sleep the PC. These are full shut downs. I never use hibernate or sleep modes.

I did check my bios, and 'Wake on Lan' was enabled. So I have disabled that as well. Hopefully between that and turning the USB ports off while it's in shut down will solve the issue. Thanks for the reply!

Liberty610 · July 27, 2023

Just to follow up, my PC remained off all day yesterday after I disabled 'Wake on Lan' and enabled the ERP settings to tuen my USB ports off while it is in shutdown. So far, so good. I will continue to monitor this through out the weekend. If it doesn't boot back up by itself over the next few days, I am going to assume one of these two BIOS settings fixed the issue.

Thanks for the reply!

AI_Must_Di3 · July 27, 2023

4 hours ago, Liberty610 said:

Just to follow up, my PC remained off all day yesterday after I disabled 'Wake on Lan' and enabled the ERP settings to tuen my USB ports off while it is in shutdown. So far, so good. I will continue to monitor this through out the weekend. If it doesn't boot back up by itself over the next few days, I am going to assume one of these two BIOS settings fixed the issue.

Thanks for the reply!

Sorry i didnt get back to ya quicker, but im glad to hear you seemed to have fixed the issue.