Something Is Powering Down While Running Vista

[colinbate]

I was using my computer the other night when I heard a noise come from it as if something had powered down. Thinking it may have been the fan on my processor, I immediately turned off the PC. I later turned it back on and all seemed fine. After thinking about it for a while, I realised I was in Windows Vista when it happened and I had booted back into XP afterwards (I've dual booted, as I'm still not 100% sure on Vista) I then booted back into Vista and it didn't happen again, by that time it was late so I went to bed.

The next day I booted my PC into Vista and a few minutes later it did it again, so I turned it straight off again. I then took the side off the PC and booted into Vista so I could see what was going on, sods law dictated it didn't happen again. No matter what I did it wouldn't do it again, I even put the side back on without the screws in place so I could quickly take it off should the problem happen again, so I could see what was happening, but nothing.

Since then (only in Vista) I keep getting this noise as if something is powering down. I have ignored it to see what happens afterwards (as I know the processor fan is working fine) but the PC seems to go on working as if nothing has happened. Something sounds like it likes to keep powering down at random times

* I know the processor fan is working fine. It runs "Cool & Quiet" so it speeds up/down when it needs to, but it doesn't power down (i.e. go off)

* The only other fan I have in the system is in the PSU and that seems to be working find too.

* I've accessed the hard drives after this noise happens to see if they powered down, but they are accessed instantly so it cant be them.

A friend asked if I have a temperature controlled PSU causing the fan to switch off when its not needed. I told him the PSU came with the case and as far as I know its not temperature controlled. Plus if it was temperature controlled, why wouldn't the same thing happen in XP?

Some one suggested updating Vista to SP1 to see if that cured the problem, but it didn't.

The only other thing I can think of is my Graphics card which is a Radeon x1650 Silent (so no fan to power down, its heat sink just gets bloody hot instead) BUT when I first installed Vista it wanted to install the Radeon X1950 driver for it, even after I had installed the correct driver.

It "doesn't seem" to be doing any damage but its annoying the hell out of me and I know it shouldn't be doing it!

Anyone got any thoughts on what could be causing this or anyone had the same experience?

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PC Specs

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AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core

Asrock ALiveNF7G-HD Ready Motherboard

2GB DDR2 667 Memory

ASUS ATI Radeon x1650 Silent

Maxtor 120GB SATA Hard Drive

Western Digital 200GB SATA Hard Drive

Pioneer SATA 20x DVD-RW

500 Watt PSU

[nitroshift]

It's your "slave" HDD powering down when not being used to save power.

[nitroshift]

**** keyboard....

Edited May 28, 2008 by nitroshift

[nitroshift]

It's your "slave" HDD powering down when not being used to save power. Make sure your box is fully updated and the issue will be gone (there is an update for Vista to fix this very issue).

@mods,

Please delete my 2 posts above, don't know what happened but when I pressed "Submit" there were 3 posts!!!

Edited May 28, 2008 by nitroshift