Windows 7 PC is automatically shutting down

Question

I have a Windows 7 PC that is supposed to be on 24/7, but it is automatically shutting down unexpectedly and frequently. It seems to shut down at night sometime, i.e. it needs to be booted on in the morning. I'm not sure the exact interval because I'm not the main user, but I do know that it happens less than once a day.

I don't know why it is shutting down like this.

Found this similar question, but that's not why mine is shutting down:

• Windows 7 is shutting down unexpectedly, according to the logs

(Logs confirm that last update was longer ago than last shut down. That would cause a restart anyway right? Mine is getting turned off.)

I have ruled out the following obvious possibilities:

1. Automatic Windows Update restart
2. Scheduled Task to shut down
3. BIOS setting to shut down

I just realized that it could be Sleep or Hibernate, and maybe the network activity (Ethernet) is not waking the PC up. Could that be why? Do I need to totally disable Sleep/Hibernate?

Any other possibilities?

Answer 1

Which answer will be proper ?

Actually, there is many things you can check up :

• at the system boot, do you have any message comes up that your computer was shut down unexpectedly ?

• if yes, go the event logs and check up the error messages (red color, in the system logs), you should have a blue screen error with a 0x000000xx message, or another message like "lost power...", if so, post again your error here

• if not, then you should check about the windows update settings, i think normally it is set up by default at 3:00am, so disable the automatic install and just let the computer download it and ask you to reboot when needed, or schedule it yourself

• maybe it is due to another schedule task

Answer 2

You might want to look at the eventlog and try to find events for when the machine is shutting down. Since you say this is happnening frequently, then this should be easy to determine from the eventlog. Try to determine a pattern (is it always shutting down at a particular time?). Try to glean from the events what was happening on the machine. If it does happen at the same time each day, then take a look at the machine at that time and physically see what's happening. Another idea is that perhaps your machine is blue screening (again, you should be able to determine this from the eventlog). You also mention above that you're not the main user; who else is using the machine and what are they doing with it? Could someone else be shutting it down?

Answer 3

I had a Dell E6520 laptop that was doing the same thing from the day I received it (from employer IT dept). Windows and the App Event Log had no warning about pending shutdown, but would show "unexpected shutdown ...." on restart. (Insert bad language about much lost work). Turns out it was a common problem with that model. A new laptop (same model) with my old hard drive eliminated the problem and greatly reduced my stress level.