About every 6 or 8 months, my Windows 7 goes into an "Unexpected Shut Down".

I get the infamous "Blue Screen" with text about the shut down being to protect my computer, but no details in layman's terms.

After Windows restarts by itself and recovers to the login screen, there is a little box that says something to the effect of "Checking for a solution" and that's all the information I get.

So what causes these shutdowns?

 

Windows 7

 

I know you want a better answer, but the title of your thread says it all. "I'm using Windows. It fails regularly." What's your question? LOL!

Sorry. I tend to get a bit silly about midnight.

 

sadly as i tell a lot of clients, windows was just trying to work out 'the smell of the number blue'.

sometimes trying to find the answer is as hard as winning the lotto 3 weeks in a row. if its a random occurrence, may as well as leave it like that.

there's only one thing i've ever found wrong with win7 , it has a gui.

 

I'm not clear if you are saying you keep Win7 running constantly for 6-8 months and then it craps out or if your are shutting it down regularly but get this problem.

Obviously Windows is everybody's favourite whipping-boy when it comes to operating systems and no doubt some people will tell you to use a different OS, even though that may not be a realistic solution for you. However putting there are things you can do to investigate. The place to start is the event viewer (right-click the "Computer" icon click "Manage" and then click "Event Viewer"), it is probably easiest to do this fairly soon after an unexpected shutdown to save you having to hunt through months of logs; in there find events that occurred just before the shut down. You can then follow up what software these events relate to (Google!) and try to identify the culprit.

OR you can decide that life is too short and reboot from time to time.


BTW it's not just Windows that fails unexpectedly and without explanation, I've seen it on Solaris, Linux and VMS. I agree that windows may be it a bit more fault prone but that it generally because it is doing more. However most of the Windows angst is just a matter of perception, more people use windows more of the time to do more varied things and so experience more failures.

 

As long as 6 months? Wow, you're lucky! Have you contacted Guinness to see if that's a new world record?

 

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended yesterday, January 12th 2015. So sorry Charles, you now have to pay for our useless support people.

 

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended yesterday, January 12th 2015.

OMG! Why is this Vista machine still running???

I don't even know how many versions of Windows I have not bought!

 

Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, (skipping 9), Windows 10!

 

BTW it's not just Windows that fails unexpectedly and without explanation, I've seen it on Solaris, Linux and VMS. I agree that windows may be it a bit more fault prone but that it generally because it is doing more. However most of the Windows angst is just a matter of perception, more people use windows more of the time to do more varied things and so experience more failures.

Blue screens are the norm with win computers, as are any number of never ending problems you get with it, including horrific security and privacy. You can't get that when the provider of your operating system collects all your usage data, then sells it to other companies so they can spam, hack and attack you.

Our company has been using linux full time for the last 5-6 years, never once has any of the different systems we use crashed or shown any sign of faltering. Upgrading works seamlessly for software and the distro's. Until recently I used both linux and Win8.1, many of our customers still use last century bloat ware, so we have to provide them with what they want in win format. We no longer do that, because it diminished the standard of our presentations, now customers get to see it on our systems and then in their win system. The reactions are quite amazing, when they realise their win and apple computers aren't capable of providing the same experience as with linux, which really makes them think.

Got rid of win 8.1 a couple of months ago as spending lots of money on slow old software, which is useless for our needs and light years behind the industry standard, is a waste of time and money for me and who I work for. What I love most about linux/open source, is the massive variety of software and ability to customise your system to suit any requirements, plus the fact just about all linux distro's and software are compatible with each other and older versions. You can't get that with Win or apple,, just the opposite.

 

Blue screens are the norm with win computers.

We will have to agree to differ but I cannot remember the last time I saw a blue screen of death on a windows box but it must be 5-10 years,. Properly administered Windows is fine, serious commercial enterprises use Windows, if BSoD was the norm and impacting productivity then they would soon switch, and/or M$ would fix it.

Win 7 just ended mainstream support but will receive extended support (security patches, etc.) for another 5 years. How long is extended support for your CURRENT linux distro?

 

or M$ would fix it.

Have to admire your optimism .

 

OMG! Why is this Vista machine still running???

I don't even know how many versions of Windows I have not bought!

The version is money.
I'm still using xp3 for now, two months ago I just bought a second hand 14" notebook computer about US$33.3 without a battery, and there was a win 7 inside, the computer almost my daughter used it for the school home work.

And now I saw another 10.2" notebook computer about US$50 without a battery, I just thinking do I need to buy this one or not.

 

We will have to agree to differ but I cannot remember the last time I saw a blue screen of death on a windows box but it must be 5-10 years,. Properly administered Windows is fine, serious commercial enterprises use Windows, if BSoD was the norm and impacting productivity then they would soon switch, and/or M$ would fix it.

Win 7 just ended mainstream support but will receive extended support (security patches, etc.) for another 5 years. How long is extended support for your CURRENT linux distro?

My own personal linux mint is LTS until 2019, our company systems are in house created, so have on going support daily for ever. Any problems our company systems have are fixed instantly and with mint, the fix is normally already there. Not so with windows, where they are still trtying to fix security and many other problems you see being complained about every day on line and in the businesses I visit.

 

The latest Blue Screen incident was last night and this has been the only one since my original post.

For my computer, it doesn't happen very often, but it is annoying and I would like to know what's going on.

 

[SARC]
Shutting down is one of the few things Windows does well.
[/SARC]

 

Daily re--boots will help.

My PC at work gets buggy if I don't do a cold re-boot everyday.

I believe some computer brands are more "buggy" just because.

You might try all of the old tricks, remove and re-seat the RAM, unplug, remove the battery, and hold the Power On button for 30 seconds, remove the HD and re-install, lastly, see if you can blow it out with compressed air.
I've seen lots of laptops and desktops that get totally clogged up with dust, and that causes overheating, and then the bluescreen, or failure to launch, etc.

 

Just remember, if you clean up the machine by blowing it out with compressed air, make sure the fans are kept from rotating! Otherwise, they turn into mini-generators and can send reverse voltage into the motherboard. It might be ok, or it might not.

 

Google is your friend.
Here are six pages of, "Why BSOD".
I expect Micro$oft has many more pages you can read.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/blue_screen_survival_guide

 

My computer is only used for about 5 hours out of a 24 hour day and I do a "cold shut down" every night.