PC only starts if router in ON (windows 8.1 update related)

M

mutant

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
181
Ok so my PC had Windows 8 on it, I decided to update it to 8.1. All went fine but since the upgrade my PC only starts if my router in ON ie. my PC is online :eek: Also if I turn the router off windows restarts.

Wtf is going on?
 
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Check your UPS. My friend had that happen to him sort of and the router was plugged into a place that auto powered off the router. Also, when you say windows restarts, do you mean is BSOD's or that is properly restarts? Is this a laptap or a desktop? Are you connected wirelessly or wired?
 
ManofGod said:
Check your UPS. My friend had that happen to him sort of and the router was plugged into a place that auto powered off the router. Also, when you say windows restarts, do you mean is BSOD's or that is properly restarts? Is this a laptap or a desktop? Are you connected wirelessly or wired?
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It is a desktop. It does a proper restart not BSOD. The router is in a different room and part of a different power source. The PC is wired to this router. This problem only started with 8.1 upgrade.

If I go and switch the modem off the PC will restart and then when Windows login screen appears.....I put the password hit ENTER and it restarts again unless the router in the other room is ON.

It's almost as if Windows needs some online validation. Btw OS is legit,
 
That's gotta be the silliest thing I've ever heard...

Will it start with the network cable disconnected? What happens when you pull the network cable? Vs. turning off the router completely.

Try booting the computer and then disabling the network adapter in Windows. Does it reboot? Can you boot into safe mode?
 
That's one of the stranger Windows issues I've ever seen. I wonder if it's some WOL setting or something, or it's switching itself to offline mode. I'll have to try this with my computer.
 
Even doing a clean install from USB stick over and over it took me like a week to get 8.1 installed correctly. All the UEFI settings and stuff... I can't imagine how anyone gets the upgrade to work. I guess that would be my suggestion is doing a clean install but that's really drastic.

What motherboard? Onboard NIC? Drivers installed or windows generic? Maybe something to do with wake on LAN.
 
MysticRyuujin said:
That's gotta be the silliest thing I've ever heard...
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HeavensCloud said:
That's one of the stranger Windows issues I've ever seen.
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If you guys haven't read the Tom's Hardware Win 8 forums you're missing out then. Come to think of it, its most of the forums there. One idiotic thread after the next most of the time. Some of the crap people come up with is just mind boggling (Example).

Back on topic. I find this issue hard to believe. A demonstration video would be interesting.
 
Silliest thing you guys have heard or not but that is what is happening. Jeez tough crowd :D
I tested with internet cable unplugged and same behaviour as when router is switched off.

Plug the cable in, turn the modem ON and I can enter windows no problem. This is not something random...I can recreate it 100% of the time. It only started after 8.1 upgrade.

Anyway this is an old workstation PC that I had demoted for internet use few years ago. In next few months I was going to replace it so no big deal as router is always connected and ON anyway.

Tyan K8WE, AMD Opteron 285 CPU.
 
Something most have went really wrong with the upgrade. You probably will be better off reloading/refreshing windows at this point. The effort it will take you to track down this obscure problem probably will be better spent reloading the OS.
 
mutant said:
Silliest thing you guys have heard or not but that is what is happening. Jeez tough crowd :D
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It is one of the silliest things I've heard. Not that I haven't seen some very odd things in the past, but some things are just weird that like. Can't really explain them, and they SHOULDN'T happen in the first place. It's like your car not starting because your porch light is on... Very odd.

A couple things I though of off the top of my head - is the BIOS set to boot from network? Does your router have any USB ports or anything? When Windows does boot, is your main drive set to "C:" (I've had USB drives in the PC that took the C:\ and when removed it wouldn't work, some printers with removable media ports can do that, too. Maybe the router does?)?
 
What in the hell would cause something like this if it is indeed the root cause, don't see how this is possible.
 
May be worth trying to create a new profile and see if the problem persists.
 
Do ever feel like you have been had. :D If it really is a problem, I want to know what happens if he just unplugs the Ethernet cable as well.
 
PinchedNerve said:
If you guys haven't read the Tom's Hardware Win 8 forums you're missing out then. Come to think of it, its most of the forums there. One idiotic thread after the next most of the time. Some of the crap people come up with is just mind boggling (Example).

Back on topic. I find this issue hard to believe. A demonstration video would be interesting.
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On a side note, WTF is up with Tom's Hardware. Their site is fucking atrocious.

OT: Is this machine synced with Skydrive? Do you have it set to require a password, authenticated with online services setup? I think this is a configuration anomaly, rather then a bug.
 
You lot are funny. I am not winding you up. I have better things to do than being an attention whore with some dreamt up problem. I am just busy working and as it is not a major problem nor my main PC so I have given up for now.

When I have time and backed up recent stuff then I will just reinstall windows. Btw no virus or malware involved. I ran malwarebytes, spy bot search and destroy, MSE and all came clean.

The funny shit is that it keeps restarting when disconnected lol I let it restart 5 times to see if it mends it's bad ways.....I felt sorry for the PC so turned the modem/router switch back ON lol

Ruoh said:
OT: Is this machine synced with Skydrive? Do you have it set to require a password, authenticated with online services setup? I think this is a configuration anomaly, rather then a bug.
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Yeah it could be something to do with configuration as I was not very attentive when I upgraded to 8.1. I did not set up skydrive though. The only password involved is the password to log into windows.
 
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Did you physically disconnect the Ethernet cable itself or just simply turn the router off? Does it still happen if you just physically disconnect the cable?
 
ManofGod said:
Did you physically disconnect the Ethernet cable itself or just simply turn the router off? Does it still happen if you just physically disconnect the cable?
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Disconnecting the cable results in restart same as switching the modem/router OFF :D And until the cable is reconnected and modem turned ON the system will continue restarting or the windows need to be repaired screen...continue to windows or advanced option screen thing.

Could it be something to do with old hardware getting confused by 8.1 upgrade? Tyan k8we is like 10 years old MOBO.
 
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Read this http://www.howtogeek.com/107511/

Reset or at the very least try to Refresh the PC first, whichever it takes and be done with it.

P.S. Do all this without a ethernet cable plugged into the PC. If you can't do either without the ethernet cable then it has to be a Bios issue.
 
mutant said:
Could it be something to do with old hardware getting confused by 8.1 upgrade? Tyan k8we is like 10 years old MOBO.
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I like the idea someone posted above, disable the network card in Device Manager and see what happens. If it doesn't reboot, then there's likely a driver problem with that NIC. Not surprising, since it's an nForce board, and I'm sure the driver support in 8.1 for nForce is pretty poor.

Another thing to check in Device Manager is the Power Management tab in the properties of the NIC (both NICs). Try unchecking the options in there regarding windows turning off the device and allowing the device to wake the computer.
 
I like the idea someone posted above, disable the network card in Device Manager and see what happens. If it doesn't reboot, then there's likely a driver problem with that NIC. Not surprising, since it's an nForce board, and I'm sure the driver support in 8.1 for nForce is pretty poor.
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I'd be careful doing that. If it does restart the machine, it may be difficult to enable the nic to get the machine to boot again...
 
If the network driver or network card was unstable, making the OS query for the network could cause a reboot. Strange though. I'd go try to download a newer network driver.
 
jimh425 said:
If the network driver or network card was unstable, making the OS query for the network could cause a reboot. Strange though. I'd go try to download a newer network driver.
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Yeah, I would do the same.

It really sounds like something happened between Windows 8 to 8.1 with the driver. It's as if the OS became "dependent" on the connection so that it's only on when there's active connection, and turns off when there isn't.

To me, honestly, it sounds like the driver has compatibility issues with 8.1. When I upgraded to 8.1 from 8, the only issue I've had regarding drivers was with the VMware network drivers that it installs-- none of my VMs I use could connect to the internet regardless if I used Bridged or NAT. So, quirky things like that might be a driver issue altogether. My fix was to re-install VMware Workstation, and update it when VMware updated it.

If there isn't a compatible driver, may have to get a new network card.
 
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