4

I was given this comp at work and after a week or so this strange thing started to happen in the middle of doing something :-(

It turns off itself at about 9.10am every morning

Just once a day and it works fine after it had it little nap.

  • it happens both if the comp was on all night or I turned it off before leaving the office.
  • I tried to swapped the memory as I was told that there was an issue with memory. But moving or removing any memory did not make any difference.
  • I am not aware that I would install any program that could cause that. I installed AVG and set it up to do every day scan about 8am + if restart is needed it requires user confirmation.

  • 'The Software Protection service has stopped' few minutes before it turned off itself but it happened also at other times without the computer turned off.

  • I turned off Windows automatic updates as the first thing when I got the comp

configuration

  • Windows 7 Ultimate
  • Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 at 2.8GH, 8GB RAM
  • ST31000528AS Barracuda 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 1TB

Update

Below message are logged when I turn the comp on again.

Message 1: The previous system shutdown at 9:08:54 AM on ‎6/‎29/‎2010 was unexpected. Message 2:

  • Level:Critical
  • Source: Kernel Power
  • EventID 41
  • Task Category (63)
  • The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Error log

Log after manual restart

log after reboot

Update 2 (task scheduler)

task scheduler

17
  • Is there anything else useful in the Event Viewer just before the shutdown?
    – user3463
    Jun 29, 2010 at 2:07
  • @Randolph Potter: please see my update
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 2:39
  • Could it be your antivirus updating itself? That may not show up in scheduled tasks...
    – Mokubai
    Jun 29, 2010 at 10:58
  • I set it up that antivirus needs confirmation if restart is required.
    – Radek
    Jun 30, 2010 at 1:25
  • @Radek: can you set the BIOS clock to something +-3 hours and disable the syncronization to a time server inside windows? Just to see if the shutdowns are time based and not some accidents.
    – akira
    Jun 30, 2010 at 6:26

6 Answers 6

4

It looks like something outside of Windows itself. A couple of things to check:

  • Are there any settings in your BIOS for scheduling shutdowns?
  • Is there anything nearby which turns on at about that time (eg. air-con, photocopier) which may be causing a power spike?
3
  • i was thinking this as well, checked MY bios but found nothing similar. but i had the feeling that some bios'es might support this.
    – akira
    Jun 29, 2010 at 8:21
  • I couldn't find anything in BIOS that would in my opinion cause the thing to happen. We turned everything off anyway.
    – Radek
    Jun 30, 2010 at 23:22
  • I believe it was related to some hw thing ...
    – Radek
    Jul 16, 2010 at 1:44
2

check the task scheduler if a funny person has created a plan to periodically shutdown your machine:

  • cmd.exe / powershell.exe:

    % schtasks /query /fo csv /v | findstr shutdown
    
  • "start" -> type in "planning tasks" (or something similar) and then look, if there is a scheduled task to run of at that given time.

6
  • please see the Update2. I'd say that there is nothing scheduled
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 2:55
  • did you check it only via the gui or on cmdline as well?
    – akira
    Jun 29, 2010 at 3:05
  • both. I don't think it could be a scheduled task as it is not exactly the same minute every day...
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 4:04
  • did you test this as adminstrator as well? check also hidden tasks, see support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;939039&x=5&y=9
    – akira
    Jul 1, 2010 at 7:09
  • how can I run it as admin?
    – Radek
    Jul 1, 2010 at 23:30
2

You should check to see what could be occurring every day at 9 AM. There may be a task scheduled, or an automatic update. That task may be what is causing the shutdown. This error just reports that the system shut down uncleanly. That it occurs consistently at 9 AM means that there's something that the computer is doing at that time which is causing this unclean shutdown.

There is more information about this error in this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

2
  • please see the Update2. I'd say that there is nothing scheduled
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 2:55
  • interesting article but I cannot see how it could help ... Thank you for that
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 6:49
2

This may be related to a kernel (Blue-Screen) crash. I've seen corporate environments where Windows was configured to automatically reboot after system failure and also NOT to report the issue in the event log, which could be why you can't see the cause of the reboot.

The settings are somewhere around the

My Computer->Properties->Advanced system settings->Advanced->Startup and Recovery Settings

Area. Check "Write an Event..." and UNcheck "Automatically Restart". This may result in you getting the Blue-Screen the next time you'd normally experience the sudden reboot. Maybe the STOP-Code points to a cause.

1
  • both settings were checked. So I unchecked the Automatically Restart. But the system just suddenly dies, in a split of second. No blue screen no warning, nothing.
    – Radek
    Jun 29, 2010 at 23:49
1

Go to Action center and turn off backup messages. This happens when you make backups regularly and the stop backing up for a while, the security protection gets enabled, as does the backup program. its Like a little reminder Windows 7 does, kinda cool in a way. Hope this helps!

Also If you ever get a computer from an office, make sure the timers are turned off, since may schools and offices have theirs program to turn off at certain times. Check the BIOS as well. And it is always good to reinstall, you never really know what is truly on a work computer.

Don't forget to install ccleaner from cnet.com, A must have for any internet user. Try it!

1

Okay, this sucks.

I gave up on trying to find the cause, so I did a drastic change. A week ago, I installed two 64GB SSD's, putting XP on one, and Windows 7 on the other. I installed a 600GB Velociraptor for my programming.

Everything was fine, until this morning. The machine shut down at 8:21. The only change I have made in the past few days, is I installed two ACAD programs last night. I installed Arch Desktop 3 and ACAD 2004. These were both installed on the previous system at the time it was originally built in 2007.

So, did you have either of those programs on your machine?

Further little tidbit- during all my attempts at solving this riddle, I have replaced every single component with one exception: I have not removed the CPU (E6850 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duo) from the motherboard (Asus P5N32-E-SLI).

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