Windows 8.1 computer shuts down unexpectedly.

You should start your own thread and paste a link to the new one here and in the new one post a link back to this thread.

I am having a similar issue to you all, I think. My PC doesn't usually only last 30 mins or 1 hour. Sometimes it can last a day or two... previously I've seen it able to last weeks. But anyway, let me explain.

Sometimes, randomly, my PC will just say "shutting down" and turn off. At this point, it will usually reboot itself. This usually happened early-morning the first time, but now it seems to happen whenever it feels like. It is a powerful laptop, so I'm not running out of any kind of resources like may have been suggested with the paging file earlier in the thread. I'll list my specs further down. Anyway, this started happening in late march; around the 19th or 20th (ironically the same day this thread was started) and I have been having the issues since. I've sent the machine for repair twice, and it has since had a motherboard change, but the problem persists even now. It never happened at the manufacturer's place, but it happened to me. It's exceedingly annoying, because there's no telling when it will happen at all. I could be idling listening to music or in the middle of playing battlefield 4. It just decides "hey, I wanna turn off now!".

In event viewer, there is SOMETIMES a log just before it turns off stating "the kernel power initiated a shutdown transition". It never sees the log from "user32" that's meant to accompany it when I hit "shut down" or "restart" etc through windows. Usually when one shutdown begins, the PC will have very very frequent shutdowns until I take it off, remove all power from the system (battery/power supply) and leave it off for 24 hours or more. Then, I would get 2-3 weeks before the problems began again. Once a shutdown cycle begins, I could experience shutdowns while idling in the BIOS menu. Windows doesn't even need to be loaded. Heck, it'll restart without Windows even being installed; because the first time the shutdown cycles began I resintalled windows a few times. The third time I tried to reinstall it (I had a windows 8 key, so I went from 8 --> 8.1) it shut off while expanding files for Windows 8, so the result was a broken install of an OS, but the machine kept restarting.

I do not remember this happening with Windows 8. I do not know if it is Windows 8.1 I was assuming that this is a BIOS "feature" that seems to be getting turned on at slight voltage fluctuations in my house, or something to that effect. But right now? I don't even know. I have tried everything one can conceive of. I have uninstalled every program that was installed by me after receiving the laptop again after the second repair attempt (which resulted in the motherboard swap), to no avail. I have tried running with SLI disabled. No avail. I have tried safe mode. No avail. Once it decides it's in a cycle it's in a cycle. I did not think it was windows 8.1, but seeing many people here having a similar issue changing hardware and still getting the problem made me start to wonder.

I have hibernation disabled. As in, I opened cmd as an admin and typed "powercfg -hibernate off" disabled. The machine has no hibernate page file. It is not related to hybrid shutdown in any way, as far as I can see. I have a paging file on my secondary hard drive for data, as my primary is a 128GB SSD which I rather use less data on. A 16GB page file and another 16GB hibernate file does not bode well for a smaller SSD, no?

Anyway, my specifications are under this sentence; please tell me what more I could possibly try.

Clevo P370SM3 motherboard (once replaced with a new one) and chassis

i7-4800MQ CPU

16GB DDR3L 1600MHz Crucial memory (originally Patriot; this was swapped out for checking purposes).

2 x GTX 780M 4GB

128GB Plextor M5M mSATA SSD

512GB Samsung PM841 (840 Pro) SSD

Hitachi 1TB 7200RPM travelstar 2.5" HDD

Intel 7260ac wireless card

Clevo P-series 330W AC adapter

please note, my board is a HM-type chipset and thus has no access to the iGPU for Intel. I cannot plug anything into it and I cannot make use of QuickSync either. It is entirely locked off.

It may have not been the MB it may have been chipset driver. Was it the exact same MB? I can also be the position of the RAM, it is possible that a slower piece of RAM was in the first slot and it was causing a issue. Even the exact same RAM can have a minor difference.

Since 8.1 is a little different the OS could be faster causing an issue that was always there but not showing up. There could have been a little extra heat the was effecting the CPU to.

Were these CPUs over locked?

I have seen this issue caused by OC, virus software, display drivers, PSUs and hard drive failures. If you used the same drive and did a format when the MB was changed bad sectors could have been marked or repaired that didn't get picked up before.

I have also seen the NICs cause this. The only solution in one case was to disable the onboard LAN in the BIOS

Hi Luxus.

It is a bit strange, but I tried exactly the same, but still had the shutdown problem, I sent the MB back to where it had come from , they tested it and returned it to me as not being faulty, this I do not believe, but as it took a few weeks to do all of this, so I purchased another MB,  set it up and all has been great since.

So you may well have a point Luxus, I must try this other NB again some time as it is sitting in the corner at the present gathering dust.

You may well have hit the nail on the head.   Glad to hear all is now sorted.

In closing I will add that one must make sure the MB is 64bit compatable and made for Windows8 or you are due for trouble straight away.

Well done Sir.

cheers

No, I changed the motherboard and all is ok now. This is not the most efficient solution to the problem, but it is a solution nonetheless.

Maybe the motherboard was faulty...