New
#1
Intermittent Random Shutdowns, No BSODs or info in Event Viewer
Summary: computer is intermittently (but against my will) shutting down 'properly' (i.e. by trying to close open programs first), and also sometimes it crashes and generates a BSOD (which seems to be related to graphics card). I am currently trying to get the crashdumps off the machine.
Note it has shutdown 15 times today, but only 3 minidumps are available. It appears to be a combination of (a) 'legitimate' shutdowns and (b) crashes, hence why I'm wondering if there are two different problems here.
Symptoms:
- computer shuts down sometimes on boot up, prior to windows loading, such as at PCI devices listing stage (just prior to 'boot from CD' message) - no info in event viewer, and no BSOD
- computer shuts randomly down both in safe mode and in normal mode, all startup programs disabled but behaviour continues - note it tries to close down 'properly', it seems that something within windows is trying to trigger a shutdown (similar to the way windows updates does) - event viewer says that RestartManager is shutting down the PC, and suggests it was triggered by my user account. I do not know what exactly is causing this, it happens even after a fresh reboot so is presumably not down to a program that has recently updated.
- tried a RAM check pre windows, it also rebooted when I tried this - again no info in Event Viewer
- in addition to the 'proper' windows shutdowns (triggered against my will) there are a number of BSOD outright crashes - three today and six in the past week or so.
From the symptoms above, it might be that there are two or three separate problems here, especially given that some of the shutdowns happen outside of my windows install (e.g. when checking RAM).
Background
- I picked up the PC from a friend that had also experienced random stability issues under XP, it has sat under a desk for the past couple of years.
- when I first got the pc I did a memtest x86 to see if I could work out what the problem was. It said there were no errors, and the PC seemed stable in XP so I assumed the instability was a thing of the past.
- After cleaning it up (de-dusting etc) I did a fresh install of Windows 7 when I got it a month ago, it has run absolutely fine for the past month, until the past week. Today it has become particularly bad, with about 15 reboots, including 3 BSODs. I have disabled startup items but problem persists.
- Recent activity: installed an old PC game this week, which didn't run as it was missing a dll so needed a direct X update (which doesn't seem to have any option to install); last week upgraded the graphics card drivers to the latest ones from AMD (ran fine until today with the new drivers);
- Other recent activity (probably not relevant) installed various Windows Media Centre addins and uninstalled / disabled a number of them due to problems crashing WMC - addins include comskip, dvrmstoolbox, showanalyser, recorded tv hd, and tunerfree mce. Mostly disabled now.
- cpu is running at about 40 degs, I've also tried running the PC with the case open but problem persists.
I am in the process of trying to get the six BSODs off the PC (it keeps shutting down before I'm done) - 3 from today, but six this week.
I had a quick look at them in BlueScreenViewer and the following are mentioned as probable causes:
- atikmdag.sys
- dxdgkrnl.sys
- dxgmms1.sys (all from today)
- ntoskrnl.sys (from one of the older crashdumps earlier this week)
I am also trying to get the info from SF_diagnostics_tool but again it reboots / crashes before I get it, even in safe mode.
Can someone please advise where to start in terms of identifying the causes of the 'full' or 'proper' shutdowns (which don't leave a crashdump or record in Event Viewer), and advise on how I work out if this is one problem or multiple problems combined. Any help is much appreciated.