Computer abrubtly shuts down when idling

[N.Broekhuijsen]

so I have my machine, which works pretty much just fine (aside from a few aero glitches at startup), but crashes when I don't touch it for a couple of minutes. It basically goes into screensaver mode (which I don't have so it just turns off screen), and after a few minutes it just abrubtly shuts down. It's not a planned shut down, as if it loses power. Then it automatically reboots, and asks me to boot into safe mode or normal mode etc, you know the story.

what could it be? How can I fix this?


PS: I hate asking about this, it makes me feel like a noob, since I can't give any better info.... but don't worry you can use fancy words on me I know my computers.

 

[omnisome]

Go to your Desktop properties and go to screensaver settings I think, hard-disks may be shutting off automatically after a specified amount of time. Take a look!

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Yes they are I've set them to turn off after 20 mins, since I've got my SSD, and my Caviar Black.

Caviar black only turns on when I need data or programs installed to it, so when im browsing or just editing docs, I don't need it.

I do this to make my machine more silent and make the HDD last longer...

how would this affect it though?

I've always done this, and the past few months i've never had a problem

 

[omnisome]

Well I'm not familiar with SSDs. Sorry can't help you here since I'm an XP user and have SATA2.

 

[Imatwork]

Maybe a dumb question here or two. Did you disable defragmenting of the system drive in Windows? I know this can cause problems in the long run for SSDs. Also, is system hibernation disabled? Could be that your particular SSD isn't capable of entering the hibernation state and it takes the loss of power as a crash instead of a "feature".

The one I would look at first is the defragmenting of the SSD. They are not meant to be defragmented ever.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

I will have a look at those things RIGHT NOW!

I just did a fresh install and its these little settings that I always forget to look at

 

[Wisecracker]

Pretty bold move running 4GB of DDR3 2000. Before I'd fiddle with an OC I'd work on your RAMs

It's pretty easy to make the numbers work - start at 533 memory with a 250MHz clock. That's the default speed of the memory controller.

NB at 9x, HT at 8x and the CPU multiplier at 14x. You could run the NB at 10x (and you might as well go ahead and bump the NB volts to 1.2v)

You've got a nice little OC to 3.5GHz and your memory is running 1333MHz. When you are nice and stable, bump the memory to 667. If that looks good ...

Go ahead and test with your memory at the 800 setting. All systems go from thare, Capt'n.

Download SisSoft Sandra and runs some memory benchies for us.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

ahahha yeah I've actually given up on making it run at 2000Mhz, i've just left it at 1600 Mhz. I've tried what you mentioned before, but I can't get that to work, I just can't boot or get insane BSOD's....

Kinda dissapointing that I can't get it to run like that but eh...


Anyways the last couple hours this idle shutdown thing has not been happening, I suppose it's just random, could continue any moment...

I'll try the OC again later though... why not, tis worth a shot

 

[nexus_nexion]

I would advise you to check every ram stick individually, random shutdown and restarts usually happens when there's RAM failure. I had this problem before, had to change RAM to work.
You want to check if any of your internal hardware has any broken capacitors on the circuit boards.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

I could check that but then why would it only crash under idle? whenever im using it, even if it's just browsing like this the machine is fine. Also, it doesn't matter if its under load or not, its dependent on screensaver mode or something...

Quite confusing, solution I have for now is simply to make the screen turn off, or let the machine lock itself...