Vista randomly shutting down, every ~1 hour

[clidx]

since I bought a sapphire x1950 pro pci-e, in vista, the pc shuts down about every 1 hour

i've installed KB938194 which is supposed to resolve an issue with gpus shutting down but no avail.

anyone have any suggestions?

[fizban2]

you seeing any errors in the even log, or can you post one of the mini dumps from the reboot?

[clidx]

the only thing in event viewer to do with it is "The previous system shutdown at 12:26:03 on 31/07/2007 was unexpected." which was just after I cold booted vista. No errors after it, a couple of warnings, the rest, completely information. but on the most recent unexpected blackout, there were a bunch of errors about kb******, and according to the time, it seems that it's cos vista blacked out while WU was installing updates. the kb****** errors are unique to this shutdown.

and by mini-dumps, what do you mean?

EDIT after googling a bit, i see what you mean, there's no c:\windows\minidump. a search in the start menu shows there is but i think that's just indexing service not updating it's file index, minidump probably got deleted and indexing still has it

Edited August 15, 2007 by clidx

[gosh]

Are you checking system in event viewer (or whatever vista calls the logs)? A blue screen would be logged under system. If a computer overheats it will randomly restart, could be unrelated to vista. Do you have the latest bios available?

-gosh

[clidx]

i did update the bios to the latest version (GA-8i915G-MF v. F8) as my new graphics card wouldn't work, and after the update it did

and i did check the event viewer under system (my previous post) and there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. a bunch of errors but that was due to windows shutting down while windows update was installing some updates. and if it's overheating it's due to vista, or possible vista heating up my pc due to stress; I'm running xp as dual boot, and this problem doesn't happen in xp.

[killerb255]

Start -> Control Panel -> System (in Classic View) -> Advanced System Settings -> "Settings" button under "Startup and Recovery" -> uncheck "Automatically restart" -> OK -> Apply -> OK.

Now instead of a reboot, you'll get the real Blue Screen of Death. Write down EVERYTHING on the Blue Screen of Death and post it here.

[g00ner]

could it be an overheating issue, since you fitted the new gfx card?

have you tried running the pc with the case off?

i installed a piece of hardware a while back in my pc and knocked the power lead out for the cpu fan and experienced random shutdowns. doh

[un4given1]

could it be an overheating issue, since you fitted the new gfx card?

have you tried running the pc with the case off?

i installed a piece of hardware a while back in my pc and knocked the power lead out for the cpu fan and experienced random shutdowns. doh

Typically, unless you have an issue with your case fans not working, you will actually get better heat dispursement with the case closed. This is due to the fact that the case becomes a wind tunnel. Taking the side of the case of does not allow for airflow.

[cluberti]

Typically, unless you have an issue with your case fans not working, you will actually get better heat dispursement with the case closed. This is due to the fact that the case becomes a wind tunnel. Taking the side of the case of does not allow for airflow.

Unless you point a fan at it

[clidx]

No it's not an overheating issue as when i start up vista again it takes ~ the same amount of time to unexpectedly shut down. and i have no case fan unless you mean the cpu or gpu fan.

i'll disable automatic rebooting later and copy down the bsod error, i'm on xp now

[cluberti]

It would be even better to configure it for a complete memory dump while you set it to not automatically reboot (it's in the same location as the "Automatically reboot" checkbox - just make sure the min/max values for your paging file are configured to be at least the size of the RAM in the box, and you'll have a .dmp that can be analyzed as well, above and beyond the bugcheck code.

[clidx]

nvm guys, in safe mode it didn't shut down every 1 hour so i had time to do a virus scan, avast picked up a virus, w32. something.

thanks for trying to help anyway!