Vista Business Random Shut Downs
 

Specs:
Windows Vista Business SP1 32-bit
Dell GX280
P4 2.8ghz
4GB (2x2GB) PC2-4200 RAM Dual Channel
Radeon HD2600 Pro
Promise FastTrak TX4310 PCI Raid Controller
1x40GB WD Caviar ATA-100 HDD (18GB free)
3x500GB WD Caviar SATA HDD (array)

Used primarily as a file server with a 1.5TB Raid-0 Array that backs up to a 3TB NAS once a week. The only software installed is Office 2007 Pro, WinRar 3.50 and Civilization 4 + Beyond the Sword Expansion.

Problem:
4 days ago this PC suddenly started shutting down at random. Or rather, it shuts down when idle at random. I've been using it tonight for over 3 hours with no problems and over the past 4 days I haven't had it shut down once while I was actually using it, including a 5 hour LAN game Wednesday night. The shutdowns seem to occur between 1 and 3 hours after last use. Naturally my first thought was overheating, but I'm confident the LAN game disproves that theory. Next I thought it was the PSU, it only had a 250w OEM PSU in it so i replaced it with a 600w Thermaltake PurePower PSU (I gave it a good cleaning while I was in there), but after some testing with the new PSU I left for the night and came home to find it had shut down again.

The only thing that has changed recently is that I installed Office about 2 weeks ago. I've run MemTest with no memory errors, I've run chkdsk /f /r with no errors and I used SpinRite for a deep surface scan with no errors. I did find that at some point after the install of Office that Automatic Updates turned itself back on to automatically check for, download and install updates at 3am every night, so I turned that off and made sure it wasn't trying to sleep/hibernate which were both disabled.

The event viewer is no help as it only gives the following information:

The previous system shutdown at 4:51:06 PM on 10/16/2008 was unexpected.
Log Name: System
Event ID: 6008
Level: Error
User N/A
Task Category: None
Keywords: Classic

And when I click on more information... no surprise here:
Details
ID: 6008
Source: EventLog

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Sorry for the long post, but I'm out of ideas aside from wiping the OS, which I'd rather not as it runs great aside from this problem. Any thoughts and/or suggestions are appreciated.

Z

It sounds like software to me. I have had some trouble with this as well, I have vista business. Check what programs are running when it shuts down and narrow it down to the one that is having the error. Also you might want to check the event viewer to see if you can find any errors around the time it shuts down. Hit start and type even viewer.

Thanks for the reply. It shut down on me again while I wa watching a movie....

I did look into that and other than the shutdown error above, there's nothing significant or consistent in the event viewer. The only thing that might be related is a bunch of errors on the day this started for Service Control Manager Eventlog Provider. There are 8 if them in a 3 minute window, 5 of them at exactly the same time then 3 more at 1 minute intervals. They all have a variation on the same error message A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Windows Search service to connect.

Obviously the PC has been restarted multiple times since then and that error has not appeared again. Besides that there are some warnings, but the majority of them are: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

I also see these warnings frequently: The content source <csc://{s-1-5-21-854245398-412668190-839522115-1136}/> cannot be accessed.

Context: Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:
The object was not found. (0x80041201)

and...

The content source <mapi://{s-1-5-21-854245398-412668190-839522115-1136}/> cannot be accessed.

Context: Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:
A server error occurred. Check that the server is available. (0x80041206)

There doesn't seem to be a pattern and all of these warnings have been consitently showing up for months. Maybe it's something compounding?

I figured out what the problem was.... or at least I think [and hope] I did. Still testing to make sure it's resolved, but after taking the PC to work yesterday, I swapped all the componentts out to an identical GX280 and the problem persisted. I stripped it to just the primary HDD and ran it off of the onboard video. Didn't shut down all day. So today I added the RAID controller and drives back in and it ran fine all morning. When I got back from lunch I added the Video card back in and about an hour later it shut down. So I opened the case and ran it again and found that the fan on the vid card wasn't running right. It would spin fine for about 5 minutes then it would freeze up then it would spin for a couple more minutes and freeze up again. As a result the card was running beyond hot. I swapped the GPU fan out, put the card back in and it ran fine for the rest of the day. So I think my problem is solved but I won't be sure until it makes it through the night without shutting down....