Shut downs are at it again!

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Rasputini

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Mar 27, 2014
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Hello Tom's Hardware folks,

I posted a couple weeks ago about my computer shutting itself off without any apparent rhyme or reason. I checked temps, they were within normal levels, RAM was ok, graphics card is pretty new, I was stumped. A helpful poster recommended trying a new PSU. I checked my logs and found a kernel shut down. I figured a new PSU couldn't hurt, so I got one. I put it in and everything was fine and dandy! Until today. I got a random shutdown again. Brand new PSU. I have no idea what it could be! I've checked the even logs and there are a couple events that I noticed. One was a weird driver issue that I couldn't identify and the other was an error, source Ntfs, Event ID 137 saying: "The default transaction resource manager on volume F: encountered anon-retryable error and could not start." This is the only commonality I could find between the last set of shut downs and this one. Before I go on I'll put my specs up:

MOBO: P7P55D-E Pro
CPU; i5-750 (not OC'd)
GPU: MSI GTX760
SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
2x 1TB HDD (not used for boot)
PSU: Corsair RM 750W
RAM: 8GB Mushkin Silverline Stiletto

I didn't see any blown resisters, no black liquids or puffy bits. I recently dusted, so everything is clear of dust. The only thing I can think of is to re-apply thermal paste to the CPU. It's a bit of a pain, so I'm hoping to avoid it if there's a more obvious problem. I suspect it's software related though. The shut downs aren't hard power offs. It goes through the process and closes all my programs for me. Are there any other options? The event log hasn't been giving me a whole lot of insight. Oh and it's a fresh install of Windows 7. With the new PSU it has been on problem free for about 5 days. This is quite sudden and very frustrating. Any help would be greatly, GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you
 
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Rasputini

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Mar 27, 2014
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It's a brand spanking new PSU. Literally 5 days out of the box.

I didn't check the windows\minidump. I usually don't get enough time on the computer to DO anything before it shuts itself off again. It's extremely frustrating. What would I be looking for in there?
 
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a44arana

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Mar 25, 2014
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PSUs can be failing even though brand new out of the box. i had a bad experience with 2 thermaltake psu's before switching to my current psu. they were brand new out the box and were causing shut downs while i was gaming and even watching videos on youtube. if you can - just try a new psu,

and also about the wattage, why so much? plan for lots of upgrades? if you only have 1 graphics card you only need about 600W for the 760.

 
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a44arana

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i just re-read the post and you say its not a hard shut down but windows itself shutting down? this may be an issue with the OS. have you checked the power button to see if its stuck? you can also set the power button to do nothing when its pressed if it is stuck.
 
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Rasputini

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I think the power button is ok. I'm not overly sure how I could check it. The weird thing is that it was on for 5 days before having any issue. I would guess if it were the power button a new PSU wouldn't make much of a difference. And yes, Windows is shutting itself off. I don't get any blue screens, no obvious error messages. Just stuff in the logs that I mentioned.
 
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Alec Mowat

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Jan 8, 2014
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Could be a brown out. Are you on a power bar?
 
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Rasputini

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I used to be on a power bar about two weeks ago when the problem initially started. I have since moved the plug to a direct wall socket. Unfortunately I'm not able to stay on long enough to check the logs for the kernel power off message that I was receiving earlier. I do get a weird driver warning. I don't remember what it was exactly as it keeps powering off. It just seems so strange that it would take the time to log me out and go through the regular shut down process if it were a power issue. That being said, the new PSU solved my issue for about 5 days. That is the only variable that has changed. Windows is a fresh install from the last wave of shut downs. This is so frustrating.
 
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a44arana

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i could only think of a virus or maybe the SSD is bad. if the system is taking the time to shut it self down, this is not the power supply, its the operating system. Have you checked the HDD and SSD for errors?

have you tried to install the OS on one of the HDDs and the problem persist? maybe your SSD is failing, how much space is left, usually you want 25% free space on the SSD for the drive the last longer. Can you still RMA the SSD or have you tried to contact samsung about this issue?
 
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Alec Mowat

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This ^^

How old is the SSD? Although that still shouldn't shut the whole system off.

You should check the bios settings and Windows settings and disable any power management or sleep mode features.
 
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Rasputini

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I don't think it's the SSD. I thought it might be when I was having this problem the other week, so I put my SSD into my laptop and it ran find for hours. The SSD is only about a year old. The drive is nearly empty. I formatted it and re-installed windows last week. I installed the Samsung software and it said the drive was fine.

I can't help but wonder about the PSU. The new one worked for 5 days with no issue and now I can't get 2 minutes on desktop. I would think that if it were overheating or a different hardware problem I would have seen these issues within the last 5 days. Only thing that worries me are the odd driver failures I saw in the log. Again, I wish I could get on there long enough to even take a picture. And what is the volume F: error? F is just the recovery partition.
 
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a44arana

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Have you tried disconnecting the other 2 HDD and using just the SSD? and does the problem still persist.

is the bios setup for your drives IDE or AHCI mode? i doubt this would help but you can try. If you find out the drives are in IDE mode, you will have to edit the registry before you can switch to AHCI mode. AHCI is better performance, heres a video on how to setup AHCI (watch the video for information about changing registry to enable AHCI if you installed in IDE mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8gW_ycdnas#t=13
 
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Rasputini

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I'm fairly certain my drives are set to AHCI. However, here's another wrench to throw into the mix. So thinking there might be an issue with the bios, I boot up to check and I can't get into them. My keyboard is on (the num lock light came up) but I'm getting no response and the computer boots to windows. I let it sit for a bit, go to check the event logs, hit the down arrow to scroll through them and it shuts off. I retried getting into bios about three times, and all three times I noticed my computer shutting down as soon as I hit a key. So I reboot without the keyboard plugged in (via USB) and it's been on for about 10 hours now with no issue. I checked my device manager and there was a little warning triangle on my USB driver. I just uninstalled it. But why the heck would a bad USB driver be shutting things down, if that indeed was the issue? I'll see if I can get into the bios now with the faulty USB driver uninstalled.
 
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Rasputini

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Update: I plugged my keyboard in and within 30 seconds received a shutdown. I was able to get into the bios, and everything is set to AHCI. I'm not 100% sure about the registry though. That being said, I've had the same bios settings for a while now without issue. This problem just randomly popped up. Even now, while I'm in the bios on my desktop the keyboard will go unresponsive at times. I'm at a loss.

Update 2: Ok. I was curious. I took my keyboard and plugged it into my laptop. No shut downs, BUT it kept logging me out, freezing my track pad and blacking out my screen. Could something screwy with the keyboard be the problem? That just seems so simple and downright stupid.
 
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a44arana

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what kind of keyboard? this could be the reason for the driver error you were seeing. if there are multimedia keys/volume keys/etc on keyboard, you might. can you get a new keyboard? generic or something just to test and see if the shutdowns still go on. walmart has 9$ usb keyboards.
 
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