Mystery overnight shutdowns?

Last month I got an HP-refurbed dv7-4183cl with Win7 x64. I'm using the HP-recommended power settings with a few tweaks. When plugged in (which it always is unless I take it out of my office), it's never supposed to sleep the computer. I run some software 24x7 on it so I want it on all the time.

Several times in the past month I've come into the office in the morning to find the laptop shut down. Not in standby, not even in hibernate, but off. I turn it on and the Windows boot screen says it was shut down abnormally.

When it boots up, the battery is in good shape, so I know it didn't run out of juice. Even if it had, it should have hibernated.

What could cause the system to mysteriously crash and shut off like this?

 

Windows Update on auto? Although that wouldn't show you the abnormal shut down message...

 

You're right, it wouldn't. It should reboot.

Plus I have Update set to "check for update but don't download or install until I tell you."

This is something else.

 

Perhaps there was a power outage in the building, and the processes you are running is high priority and tells Windows not to hibernate even when battery is low, and so uses up all the juice. After power in the building is restored, the battery is recharged again.

 

JunkStory, good idea, but unlikely. No clocks in the building (our house) indicated an outage. I have a tower PC on the same circuit (no UPS) that has run uninterrupted through most of the nights when the laptop crashed. (I think one night there might have been a thunderstorm that glitched the power. But still, that should not have fazed the laptop.)

Indrek, good thought, and I should have thought of that. I see some error messages that say "the system rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" and "the previous shutdown was unexpected," but those are getting logged after I reboot. There are no errors that indicate what might have caused the shutdowns.

It does however allow me to pinpoint the exact times when it crashed, or at least when the Event Log notes that "The previous system shutdown at xx:yy:zz AM on aa/bb/cccc was unexpected."

6:00:05AM 6/23/2011
5:50:23AM 6/20/2011
3:27:42AM 6/17/2011
1:36:25AM 6/12/2011
5:25:16PM 6/1/2011 (not sure about this one, it's in the afternoon)

I received the laptop on 5/10/2011.

Last Thursday I talked to HP support. They suggested I update my BIOS to the latest release. (Thought I already had, but apparently not.) That seemed unlikely to cause it but it was worth a try. No crashes in the last 4 days. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Gary

 

Well, after over a week with no problems, it just happened again -- in broad daylight, while I was actively using the system. No warning of anything wrong, just suddenly *poof* it shut off, as if I'd held down the power button.

The power never glitched and the battery was fully charged, so that rules out that idea.

I think it's time to call HP again...

 

HP's only suggestion was to run the BIOS disk & RAM self-test, and "if that doesn't turn up anything you'll have to send it in." Gack. I *live* on this laptop, run my business on it. Sending it in for a few weeks is going to be incredibly painful -- transferring all my data &etc back & forth.

Nothing showed up in the disk self-test. The RAM self-test was pretty lame so I ran memtest86+ on it for 18 hours -- no errors. I suspect a problem in the switch or power circuitry.

Meanwhile it crashed again yesterday (twice in one day) while I was in the middle of a Skype conference call. No warning, no indication of anything wrong, just *pop* and it's off.