Some LAUSD schools have reported that their Intel based Macintoshes with Mac OS X Leopard and Microsoft Office 2008 are unintentionally turning on at 5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time. This issue is currently under investigation and does not appear to be unique to LAUSD. The current solution appears to be the deletion of the the following file:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
Once this file has been removed a reboot is required for the erroneous automatic booting to stop. In addition the auto shutdown setting at 5:30 PM on weekdays has also been removed.
In order to make the deletion and rebooting process faster and automatic a package has been created.
This package can be used on single systems or can be pushed to an entire lab of computers using Apple Remote Desktop. Schools utilizing an Apple Remote Desktop Task Server can also push this update out to computers that are currently offline. The next time the computers are on the network the task server will automatically apply this package to the newly available computers.
If you have questions regarding this issue or solution please contact Dave Douglas.
On September 15th Apple released 10.5.5. This update has been designed to "Address an issue in which some Macs could unexpectedly power on at the same time each day." If this update resolves the issue please let us know.
Please revisit this blog post for any updates on this issue.