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how does reboot work ?

In the spectrum of questions asked on this site, this may well be one of the more mundane. But I've been wondering recently just HOW a restart or reboot command works on a computer. The question being along the lines of: If a computer is turned off, what is the mechanism that's turning it back on? That is to say, in the course of a reboot, the computer is turned off. At that point, it seems, something must remain on in order for the command to start up again to be issued and acknowledged.

I'm not sure why it hasn't occurred to me to ask this question before.

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Nice whitepaper on this here...msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463386.aspx – Moab Mar 17 '11 at 16:08
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closed as exact duplicate by BloodPhilia, Shinrai, MaQleod, Kyle, studiohack♦ Mar 17 '11 at 15:10

This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

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The short answer is that a plugged in computer is never truly "off." For example, a shut down computer can be awoken, with the proper settings, by a "magic packet" (yes it's really called that) sent to the MAC address of its NIC.

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