my PC shuts off in the middle of the night

[rh71]

It's not a graceful shutdown either as when I turn it back on in the morning it gives me the option to load in safemode or normally.

It's a new Vista setup, Q6600 (non O/C'd) on a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L and it's been doing it practically everyday since it was put together - 3 or so days in a row. Temps at idle are 40C or lower.

The last thing the system log in event viewer shows each day: The Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service entered the stopped state. That may or may not be significant. It's been different times each night too... 2:20am (3 days ago), 4am (2 days ago), 120am (last night) as the last record before I turn it on and see new records for the next day.

I checked the Gigabyte power-saving utility and there's no option that shows it can shutdown to conserve power, etc. That app was actually never used before last night anyway. Nothing in BIOS either. And again, it seems it's a forced/abrupt shutdown. Something in Vista? It is left on overnight with nothing actively running (constantly using CPU power), no applications doing downloads or processing (shutdown when finished). What am I missing?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

It's the weekend, maybe you can see what it does in the middle of the night.

 

[mc866]

Go to control panel -> classic view -> power options, select the profile that says never suspend or sleep.

I just moved to Vista64 last night and had the same issue. I checked the PC twice, once in the middle of the night and again when I got up and it appeared to be off but it was just in suspend/sleep mode.

This should hopefully correct your issue

 

[rh71]

^ thanks... I can't believe I never checked Power Options.

If I did choose to let it sleep after say 3hrs, how do you get it to wake? ... it's not the power button on the tower is it? Because that is the scenario I described... asking me safe mode or normal and that doesn't seem like a proper power-down.

 

[nova2]

if the keyboard/mouse doesn't wake it then definitely try the computer power button.

 

[Chunkee]

i have had numerous problems with the power and VISTA crashing

 

[Soundmanred]

Al Gore haz hacked ur puter?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had problems with my newly built PC spontaneously rebooting, it turned out that my UPS was defective.