System shuts down every hour-not a blue screen issue

[seamist56]

I am new to Sevenforums and I can not find a thread with recent posts concerning my issue. Pleae guide me to where I should post to receive help/input.
My situation:
System worked perfectly for about a year after build in early 2012; after a few weeks of not being used due to my absence while traveling/vacationing, I returned to find that the system shuts down again and again at intervals of 63 minutes after booting up. I have searched all leads that I can find via the internet but nothing that fits my situation. I have used Aida64 Diagnostic tools to check the temperature and no issues found; I have done 2 restores>no success. Event log does not explain... but then I am a novice and may very well be missing some clue that is there.

 

[TVeblen]

Any time I see an error that happen at a set time interval the first thing I want to check is Scheduled Tasks to see if something is scheduling the process that causes the symptom.
Start > type: Task Scheduler.

 

[seamist56]

Thanks TVeblen for the suggestion; I checked every line item within the Task Scheduler but found nothing of help. I did disable a few routine tasks (such as Google) that showed a frequency of one hour but no luck in addressing the issue. I have no idea of where to go next in finding a solution.

 

[TVeblen]

I am suspicious about your power supply. 250W is pretty small even for a system with integrated graphics.
Plus power supplies lose output as they age so that fits with the symptoms occurring after a year of use.

A power supply that does not put out steady power will cause random shutdowns. Components like the processor have those kinds of 'circuit breakers' built it to avoid damage.

If you are sure that there is no program calling for shutdown then you might test the power supply next.
Can you borrow a larger one to test with?

Or if you have a multimeter I can give you a test to try.

I just noticed you have multiple hard drives. Check this also: Start > Control Panel > Hardware & Sound > Power Options > For the Power Plan that is selected click "Change Plan Settings" > then click "Change Advanced Power Settings" > Click the + next to Hard Drives > click the + next to "Turn Off Hard Disk After" > and see if the setting is 1 Hour.

If it is then change it to 30 min or something.
I always change this setting to zero (never). But that might not be a good test for your problem.

 

[The Gunslinger]

He's running SSD's - in theory there should be no problem with setting them to never turn off.

When you say it shuts down after 1 hour, is it a controlled shut-down or is it a forced, emergency type shutdown you might encounter from holding the power button in ?

If it is a controlled shutdown, then I am with the others that are looking to scheduled task, do you have something running that is scheduled to do something that could have a commanded shutdown post event ? - try installing something like shutdownguard, if it is something commanding it, then that will likely not only stop it, but also let you know what it is that's calling for it.

If it's something else, and is like an emergency shutdown then yeah, tricky to find, if it was PSU related, i would not expect it to be so consistent as to be described as hourly or every 63 minutes.

First thing is to narrow down the type of shutdown

 

[gregrocker]

Establish a Clean Boot as shown in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 to see if prob persists.

If not work through the other steps to go over your PC thoroughly.

If nothing comes up pursuiing software and hardware then I'd get a perfect baseline Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 (same for retail) after wiping the HD of all boot code with Diskpart Clean Command. This will eliminate software and shift focus firmly on hardware.

 

[The Gunslinger]

yup, that's a pretty thorough step through, should see you right

 

[seamist56]

Thanks everyone for the additional inputs.
Update from my end includes the following:
-All of the shutdowns were forced shutdowns...not managed (i.e. not as you would expect from a task command)
- the system will always start up fine when I select "normal windows start"
- I did 2 complete "clean installs" of win7; but no change in the behavior after the following boot ups
- one change after the clean installs, is the appearance of a blue screen error message showing a stop and related code
- I contacted intel online chat and their conclusion was that the problem was incompatibility of CPU with the installed MBD....a mistake had been made when the components were purchased...and that my only course of action is to purchase a new CPU that is compatible with my board or vice versa >> on the basis of comparitive costs, they recommended new board
- since my case is form factor mini-itx, there is only one compatible board for my i5-2400 CPU and that is a DH77DF.
- my requirements focus on dependability/stability; I do no gaming on this machine; we use other computers for email, browsing, media handling etc. This system is installed on our sailboat to handle multiple apps providing navigational charting, radar, ship identification systems, depth/wind/weather/etc instrumentation and integration. It is a critical system for sailing the vessel around the world which is what we have been doing; the spec and component selection was developed by an IT expert (also a sailor) last year and I, being a novice, just ordered the components and built the machine
- it worked flawlessly against its intended purpose/requirements for about a year and then this recent ongoing regular crash history
- I seem to have no way to diagnostically prove that the incomatibility is the cause...but it is the suspicion of the intel agents
- they did supply an intel CPU diagnostic tool to make sure no damage had been done to date to the CPU as a result of the incompatibility....the TEST showed all is fine with the CPU

I WOULD VERY MUCH VALUE ANY ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM SEVENFORUMS members....if nothing new emerges, I will proceed to source the new board (I guess I should say source 2 boards as, for redundency in this application, I sourced 2 of every component when I built the system last year and so I will be tossing 2 of the exisitng boards....the installed and my spare.)
THANKS AGAIN FOR INPUTS>>>>MOST APPRECIATED!!

 

[seamist56]

Reply to TVeblen:
-The disc was set to 20 minutes; I changed it to zero/never...I am not expecting any change in system but we will see.
-I have no source for borrowing a larger power supply in my remote location in Malaysia....and the installed power supply is supposed to be totally adequate for the system requirements; my primary constraint is the form factor of the case as I have a location for the box that can NOT house a tower>>>therefore the choice of ITX for case and components
-Please do send me the test that you suggest regarding power supply; I do have top end Fluke multimeters so should be able to carry out whatever you suggest.
- in case it is useful in some way, here are the blue screen stop/error screen messages referenced by me in my last post:
:Ø STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x0000000000000003,0xFFFFFA8007CE2290,0xFFFFFA8007CE2570,0xFFFFF80002380350)
Ø STOP: 0x000000F4 (0x0000000000000003,0xFFFFFA8008B59B30,0xFFFFFA8008B59E10,0xFFFFF800029E3DB0)
- Thanks.

 

[seamist56]

I thought I should also add these event viewer errors that keeps populating after EVERY shutdown when the system is restarting:

Log Name: Administrative
Source: WMI
Event ID 10
Words are: Event filter with query “SELECT*From_InstanceModification Event WITHIN 60 WHERE Target Instance ISA “Win32_Processor” AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99” could not be reactivated in namespace “//./root/CIMV2” because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

Also there is always the following event when restarting: ( Note I would expect this event since the shut down was not "Clean" in each case)
Log Name: SYstem
Source: Kernel-Power
Event ID: 41
Level: critical
User: System
Words are: The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

 

[magicdave26]

Have you read this ?
Event ID 10 is logged in the Application log after you install Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2

It has the same error log as the fault


--
CAUSE
This originated in the Windows 7 SP1 DVD/ISO creation process. There was an issue in the creation process that caused a WMI registration to remain in the DVD/ISO. Since the registration is designed to work only during the DVD/ISO creation process, it fails to run on a live system and causes these events. These events are not indicative of any issue in the system and can be safely ignored. If however you want to prevent these events from getting generated and want to remove this specific WMI registration manually, please follow the steps mentioned in this article for running the workaround script.

 

[TVeblen]

Given the new information you supplied I am no longer thinking of the power supply as the most probable cause. An incompatible processor would certainly explain the symptom.

But here is the test:
Find a spare power connector from the power supply and connect the multimeter to it. The red lead goes on a yellow (12v) wire, the black lead to black (Grnd). Then you operate the computer as normal, watching the readings all along. watch during start up, shut down, everything. In your case watch closely starting at the 62 minute mark. The voltage should always be a steady 12v and not fluctuate more than a tenth of a volt throughout. If you are getting less than 12v (+/- 0.1v) at any time then that is a problem.

As for the incompatibility: you say you have an i5-2400 installed on a Intel DH67CFB3 MB. Are the folks at intel saying that the processor must be an i5-2400S? Because that board is supposed to be able to run the 2400S.

See here:
Intel® Desktop Board DH67CF

And here:
Intel® Processors and Boards Compatibility Tool - Search Results Page

 

[TVeblen]

The difference between the 2400 and 2400S is the 2400 uses 95W and the 2400S uses 65W. That could be the issue.

 

[The Gunslinger]

You have 2 sets of everything for redundancy purposes ?

Is this second set of parts built up as a machine and stored away, or still boxed ?

For your setup i would have thought that having 2 machines built and everything installed, with external raid storage for data would be the way to go, then you can just swap out the machines in case of issues.

I sort of assume, that because you are here, then the redundant parts are still boxed, it might be time to swap the motherboard over, given that you ran a year with no issues.