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I have something weird happening, where I think the network could be the cause: When I turn off one of the workstation (Windows XP Pro) on the network, it will automatically restart after 10 minutes (between 5 and 15 minutes actually...). I already unchecked the automatic reboot in the Computer Properties, and checked all possible BIOS options, but nothing seems to help. Does anyone knows where it could come from? Thanks for your ideas.

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Something is sending a wake on lan to the computer. Probably your patching server or SMS server as it thinks that something needs to be installed on the machine.

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  • Something like what? An update maybe? I find it weird that it happened so suddenly, two weeks ago. I will check that path... thanks. Jul 24, 2009 at 8:52
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    Or just turn of WoL on the machine.
    – womble
    Jul 24, 2009 at 9:01
  • I actually think I already tried with WoL off! But maybe not... I'll try again, this machine doesn't need to be booted from the server anyway. Thanks. Jul 24, 2009 at 9:15
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    You could just remove the ethernet cable to see if something coming through the network is causing the reboot. Jul 24, 2009 at 11:04
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    I like the idea of pulling the nic cable and seeing if the machine starts up. Assuming that the machine doesn't start up with the NIC unplugged, plug the NIC back in and fire up a packet sniffer on the network (on the same network segment that the workstation is on) and watch for the WoL packet headed for that workstation. You should be able to see if a WoL packets are broadcast. You may need to put a hub between the switch and the workstation, and connect to the hub or configure a shadow port (might be the wrong term) on the switch to mirror the traffic going to the workstation.
    – mrdenny
    Jul 24, 2009 at 18:19
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It could also be caused by some faulty hardware and also a faulty power supply. You may want to collect some samples of the reboot times to see if they are quite random or if they centre around a specific value. That may be able to help you to diagnose the problem and can be useful if you need to present findings to management. Also, trace the problem by replacing or removing the hardware components one at a time to see if any of it helps.

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