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Thread: Vista Automatic Shutdown

  1. #1
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    Vista (Vaio) Automatic Shutdown

    Hi Folk,

    It's a couple of days that my vista automatically shuts down. First the screen goes (becomes black) and in a few seconds I hear it shutting down.

    It was used to happen once a day but it didn't for like the last 2 days but today it happened again. I don't think if there is any certain time for it. I don't recall doing anything special and I guess it's a common issue googling "Vaio automatic shut down" but I couldn't find the solution.

    The only thing I can do is to upload the Event Viewer log for Administrative events. Please let me know if you need something more. I use vista in my laptop VGN-Z650N. Everything is updated, at least I suppose so!

    The last time it happened was tonight at about 8:15pm so the events in top of the excel file are the latest ones.

    Thanks 4 your help

    PS. I doubt if it's a temperature issue.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by boyboy400; August 9th, 2010 at 04:35 AM. Reason: change the title

  2. #2
    Senior Member gore's Avatar
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    This might sound dumb, but have you looked into the configuration for "Sleep mode" or "Power Management" ? What you're describing where the screen goes black then you notice it shutting off.... You didn't mention if you're using it or not when it happens, and it could be told to do this from there.

    I don't know what the sequence in Vista is, but most of the time you can "Right Click" on the Desktop, and select Display, or something to do with Video / Graphics, and look for the Power Management section where it shows you when it's supposed to shut itself off or go to sleep.

    Also, is there a "Sleep" Icon / Button on your keyboard? You could check that it's not stuck, broken, or something spilled on it and makes this happen. (Sticky Keyboards can do this).

    By the way, if this is a laptop, it may be Battery.

  3. #3
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hmmm,

    You seem to have a number of problems, but none that would obviously cause a shutdown on its own.

    I would go into the system and disable all power saving and sleep functions whilst we are troubleshooting. Remember to turn them back on when we are done

    EDIT: You beat me to that one gore

    Make sure that there is no disk in your CD/DVD drive. If there is then it is probably defective; if there isn't then I would go into hardware in the control panel and uninstall the drive then reboot to let Windows rediscover it.

    Go to MS update and get the SP1 update for .NET 1.1 and try a manual install.

    Disconnect your printer and any non-essential USB devices. Get the latest driver for your printer, uninstall then reinstall with the latest driver.

    I agree that it doesn't look like a heat issue.

    You might as well run chkdsk and MemTest86 whilst you are at it? just to rule them out of the equation.

    Hopefully that will remove some of the background noise so we can get a better look?

    EDIT:

    By the way, if this is a laptop, it may be Battery.

    Good point...AFAIK the Vaio is a laptop. My Compaq warns you when it is going to do this because the battery is low, so the question would be if this happens when you are connected to the mains power supply?
    Last edited by nihil; August 9th, 2010 at 06:23 AM.

  4. #4
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    Thanks Gore. No it's not dump at all.

    - I guess I've been working at most of the times when it happened! (and I was fortunate that I had saved my Word documents in most of them)

    -Well I've had it for about a year and I'm just having this problem for a week. I rechecked them. I haven't changed sleep mode or power management since I bought it. Anyhow the power is on Vaio Optimized and I just increased the duration of screen saver appearance to 10 min.

    -I use Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 400 keyboard. It doesn't have sleep button.

    -My laptop is 24/7 plugged in to the power. I don't move it. I turn it on in the morning and shut it down before going to bed at nights.

    -The only new hardwares I've used are the keyboard as I said, a chineese hand held wireless mouse (I didn't use it for a few days including today that the shutting down happened again since I thought maybe the wireless is causing a problem).

    -Philips monitor which is connected to the laptop with VGA.

    Honestly I'm really suspicious to this monitor! I don't exactly remember if after beginning to use the monitor it happened or not. First I bought a 25" I-Inc monitor but it was defective so I retrieved it and then I bought this Philips one. I have a feeling that every misery happened after these monitors.

    This is my other thread for this monitor.
    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...074#post956074

    Thanks Nihil. Just saw your post when I was typing. Let me try what you said. I'll be right back...
    Last edited by boyboy400; August 9th, 2010 at 06:49 AM.

  5. #5
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Try running the lappy with only its own monitor for a couple of days.

    In my experience defective hardware can produce all sorts of weird issues and Windows is not very good at reporting them. It tends to tell you the consequences rather than the cause.

    I am not sure how many of those messages are the result of your system crashing. You certainly need to do the .NET update again. My other suggestions should get rid of the CD controller and printer messages if they are persistent.

    The "bad block" message is usually associated with damaged/dirty media, or a dirty drive.................try running a lens cleaning CD.

    The actual message that is relevant is "The previous system shutdown at 8:09:28PM was unexpected"

    Like I said, Windows error messages can be rather unhelpful at times.

    I have revisited your other post and your Philips screen looks a prime suspect. If it is possible I would try a different VGA cable, as that can be a solution. If that doesn't stop the flickering then I would send the monitor back. You might try it at a lower resolution (the same as the built in monitor or slightly less) and fewer colours just in case your video chipset can't support your current settings.

    Finally you could try an HDMI cable as I believe both the laptop and monitor support this type of connection.

    Please be sure to check the RAM, as that can be a cause of this type of problem. I actually had a machine in that crashed because it had 1.5GB of DDR 400 but the MoBo only supported 1GB of DDR 400 or 3GB of DDR 333. The DDR manufacturer was on the MoBo's approved list, there was just too much of it.

    More common is the last strip is defective and the machine works fine until it tries to use it, then it crashes.

    Good Luck!
    Last edited by nihil; August 9th, 2010 at 12:57 PM. Reason: typo + more info.

  6. #6
    Senior Member SnugglesTheBear's Avatar
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    I had this very same issue when I was a kid with my desktop computer. It turned out my power supply degraded and became insufficient to keep the whole thing powered up when it started reaching full loads. This sounds like a hardware failure more than software honestly. How old is the laptop? Also, try unplugging the laptop for a bit and see how fast the battery runs down. If it is in 2 hours or less, then you probably have a bad power source. =P Also, the SMU might need to be reset if you are running a x86 chip. It is either hardware or the SMU from the sounds of it.

  7. #7
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    It turned out my power supply degraded and became insufficient to keep the whole thing powered up when it started reaching full loads.
    Not that.............the OP has said that it isn't load related and the machine is well specified and only a year old. I know it is running Vista, but it has 4GB RAM and 256Mb of video. It isn't one of those garbage boxes they sold when Vista was first released

    Also, try unplugging the laptop for a bit and see how fast the battery runs down. If it is in 2 hours or less, then you probably have a bad power source.
    Afraid that won't tell you much...............running on mains only for a year and batteries can be of variable quality to the extent of exploding or catching fire.

    Also, the SMU might need to be reset if you are running a x86 chip.
    Not easy to do on a Sony Vaio running Windows Vista?...........PMU/SMU are Apple technologies AFAIK.

    If the machine will run in its original state then it is OK.

    This does sound like the monitor.

    1. Try different connection cables/types
    2. Look in Windows to be sure that the video settings are supported.

    EDIT:

    Bit of a long shot, but did the monitor come with its own "drivers" and have you loaded them?

    Also, is it recognised correctly by make and model?
    Last edited by nihil; August 9th, 2010 at 07:00 PM.

  8. #8
    Senior Member SnugglesTheBear's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nihil View Post
    Not easy to do on a Sony Vaio running Windows Vista?...........PMU/SMU are Apple technologies AFAIK.
    Oh yeah, what I meant was SMM which runs on x86 chips >.<

    I don't see how it could be a monitor issue if the machine is shutting down though. It just doesn't make sense to me. It makes more sense for it to be a hardware failure/firmware error.

  9. #9
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    I don't see how it could be a monitor issue if the machine is shutting down though.
    Basically because the monitor is just another piece of hardware, albeit peripheral.

    I have two CRT monitors in my loft that will do the exact same. I have had the same with stick drives, modems, video cards, hard drives, keyboards, mice, RAM............hey........you name it. If something is misbehaving in an unpredictable fashion then Windows is quite likely to crash or restart. It does not handle hardware problems that well.

    If it were software you would quite likely get a BSOD and a somewhat meaningful log entry. Unfortunately it is not so good reporting hardware errors. I am sure that you saw the message I quoted.............all it told us was that the system had crashed?

    Like yourself, I believe that this is hardware related, so I suspect the newest kids on the block?............and the monitor is not performing properly? (Please check the other post the OP has linked).

    It could, of course, be malware or two apps not playing nice (particularly ones that start themselves periodically to look for updates)............but I really would expect the symptoms to appear a bit more consistently, and the OP to notice it only happened when he was running certain apps.

    I would run it as it came out of the box for a while...........if the problems happen again then it is in the original kit..............if they don't then it is the peripherals.

    The other testing I have mentioned might help to shorten the process, and help when you want to return something.
    Last edited by nihil; August 9th, 2010 at 08:14 PM.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by nihil View Post
    2. Look in Windows to be sure that the video settings are supported.
    Well I don't know what you mean but I haven't changed any video setting as far as I remember...

    Shutting down happened a few more times in the last week, not daily of course and every time I was at the middle of watching a full screen multimedia in FireFox. So the videos were not that high quality and then I switched to full screen so something happened and the system could not handle it....It's my suspicion.

    Actually I have one more problem as well. When I watch a full screen video (even SOME DVDs NOT ALWAYS) the movie has some kind of interruptions! I mean it's KIND OF like a slight slow motion. Like it stops for a second and continues and so on! The movement of scenes is not smooth!
    It's not that terrible but anyhow the movie is not shown as continuous and smooth as it should be as if there was a delay in sending the scenes to the screen (hopefully my words are descriptive enough ) Not all the things I watch have this problem so I wonder why some of them have!

    I have 51GB free in my drive C. I have ordered an HDMI cable but haven't received it yet.

    So...

    ...............................................................................

    New update: Oh my gosh...Today the worst scenario happened! I turned on the computer in the morning and was watching a video on youtube (on regular size not even full screen), so suddenly the laptop shut down like the other times! I restarted the computer but after the system was brought up, it shut down again! I did it a couple of times and each time it shut down. So I unplugged the VGA and turned it on, again shut down.

    I thought maybe it's a virus problem so ran an antivirus, TrendoMicrosystem and Avira found some problems and solved them...My windows installer was disabled and I enabled it.....So far it's stable. Amen!

    During the shut down-restart process the Philips monitor was going crazy! I mean its resolution changed a few times to the resolution of laptop then it went back to its original 1280!!!!!!! Now apparently it's fine.

    ........................................
    heck! Happened again. I'm trying using the Philips as the only monitor right now and see if it solves the problem...
    Last edited by boyboy400; August 26th, 2010 at 03:25 AM.

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