Windows 8.1 computer shuts down unexpectedly.

Anonymous
2013-10-26T15:08:41+00:00

Original Title:

Windows 8.1

Since installing windows 8.1 My screen shuts down in the middle of doing something and I have to start all over. Any answeres

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-12T06:09:47+00:00

    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.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-09-12T06:32:02+00:00

    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.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-09-12T06:49:01+00:00

    Oh boy. I'll do that in the morning. It's late and any new thread I make would contain far greater detail.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-09-12T07:10:45+00:00

    No need for more detail yet just link back here. Check the bios for a restart timer.

    In the new thread say you split it for here. Its easier to keep track and you will get more people helping

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-09-12T17:56:23+00:00

    BIOS is clean. Picked it clean to the bone. Also, how do I "make" a thread like this? I see no option to do so. Microsoft has a terribly user-unfriendly website.

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