Windows shut down unprovoked

[farlex85]

I put this in software b/c it seems like a software issue, although I'm not ruling out hardware. Every so often my computer will just turn itself off without me doing the deed. It isn't just a hard off either, it actually goes through the paces like normal when someone elects shut down from the start menu. It's pretty rare but it seems to have no rhyme or reason. Starts back up fine w/o problems like normal. Anybody else experienced this or have any ideas as to what may be causing it?

 

[vaiopup]

Remote desktop

 

[farlex85]

Remote desktop

Disabled in services

 

[viczulis]

Yep my daughters does it. Cant figure out, comes and goes this is the second one I've seen today on forums. All gigabyte boards, i've changed memory, video cards, cables, power supply,
CPU. It will stop for a month then start back up. Last week it did it three times.

 

[farlex85]

Yep my daughters does it. Cant figure out, comes and goes this is the second one I've seen today on forums. All gigabyte boards, i've changed memory, video cards, cables, power supply,
CPU. It will stop for a month then start back up. Last week it did it three times.

You mean the guy with the sound card? That is peculiar, if Gigabyte boards are the commonality here that may be a good place to start. It seems odd though that somehow a motherboard would sparratically tell windows to go through the shut down process. Mine doesn't restart either, it just turns off. So similar but a bit different than his.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Did you check scheduled tasks? Something could be funky there.

 

[qubit]

Some utility doing this?

I put this in software b/c it seems like a software issue, although I'm not ruling out hardware. Every so often my computer will just turn itself off without me doing the deed. It isn't just a hard off either, it actually goes through the paces like normal when someone elects shut down from the start menu. It's pretty rare but it seems to have no rhyme or reason. Starts back up fine w/o problems like normal. Anybody else experienced this or have any ideas as to what may be causing it?

Wow, that takes me back a couple of years. I had the exact same problem on XP. Typically, you would turn the PC on, it would get to the desktop and then immediately begin a controlled shut down. Sometimes it would stay up for a few minutes and then shut down. Other times it worked perfectly normally for hours until I turned it off. The Windows event log showed nothing, of course. Unfuriating!

Anyway, I eventually pinned it down to the Abit hardware monitor program. It hadn't been updated for years by Abit and didn't like something about the latest patches for XP. Uninstalling it cured the problem completely. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons they went bust?)

You could have something similar on your system. Try disabling everything with MSCONFIG and re-enabling them one by one and rebooting and then seeing what happens. Alternatively, you could use the Binary Search algorithm, which is much faster. Disable just half the services and see if the problem goes away, then disable half again and so on.

 

[farlex85]

Did you check scheduled tasks? Something could be funky there.

I don't see anything funky. Is there anything in particular that should raise some red flags there? Of the active tasks none of them seem scheduled to shut down the computer.

Wow, that takes me back a couple of years. I had the exact same problem on XP. Typically, you would turn the PC on, it would get to the desktop and then immediately begin a controlled shut down. Sometimes it would stay up for a few minutes and then shut down. Other times it worked perfectly normally for hours until I turned it off. The Windows event log showed nothing, of course. Unfuriating!

Anyway, I eventually pinned it down to the Abit hardware monitor program. It hadn't been updated for years by Abit and didn't like something about the latest patches for XP. Uninstalling it cured the problem completely. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons they went bust?)

You could have something similar on your system. Try disabling everything with MSCONFIG and re-enabling them one by one and rebooting and then seeing what happens. Alternatively, you could use the Binary Search algorithm, which is much faster. Disable just half the services and see if the problem goes away, then disable half again and so on.

Good suggestions I will try that. I'll have to scour through my software, I don't have a ton installed though. My best guess is a rogue service somewhere, this happens so sporadically though it's going to be difficult to tell by the MSConfig method. For instance the last time before today that it happened was several weeks ago. It's not terribly important I don't think, but it's peculiar.

 

[TheMailMan78]

I don't see anything funky. Is there anything in particular that should raise some red flags there? Of the active tasks none of them seem scheduled to shut down the computer.



Good suggestions I will try that. I'll have to scour through my software, I don't have a ton installed though. My best guess is a rogue service somewhere, this happens so sporadically though it's going to be difficult to tell by the MSConfig method. For instance the last time before today that it happened was several weeks ago. It's not terribly important I don't think, but it's peculiar.

Nothing that I know of man. Could it be the PSU crapping out? Try swapping it out. I know most of them have failsafe on them to prevent surges from frying other components. Maybe thats going bad.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

If your OS detects some sort of problem it can shut down your PC. However, there is suppose to be some sort of error message once you look in Reliability and Performance Monitor or event viewer. Have you checked that yet?

 

[TheMailMan78]

From my understanding Vista/Win7 safety procedures are a bit more robust now. If your OS detects some sort of problem it can shut down your PC. However, there is suppose to be some sort of error message once you look in Reliability and Performance Monitor or event viewer. Have you checked that yet?

Good point. He's right. Check the "Reliability and Performance Monitor" or event viewer.

 

[farlex85]

Nothing that I know of man. Could it be the PSU crapping out? Try swapping it out. I know most of them have failsafe on them to prevent surges from frying other components. Maybe thats going bad.

Could be, seems unlikely given the symptoms though. I would think a faulty PSU would cause immediate shut down, rather than have Windows close itself down. I'm not sure how it would do that. Also, my computer apparently is turning itself on or at least waking from sleep automatically. I left my house this morning and put it to sleep. I get home and now it's on.

If your OS detects some sort of problem it can shut down your PC. However, there is suppose to be some sort of error message once you look in Reliability and Performance Monitor or event viewer. Have you checked that yet?

That's the weird thing Windows doesn't seem to think it's an error. It starts back up fine (doesn't go to the screen you get to when it forcibly shut down or errored out), doesn't blue screen, doesn't give me any sort of error message, it simply shuts itself down on it's own accord (and apparently wakes itself up). I probably need to scour the event reports more, I don't see anything funny though but I don't know what I'm looking for.