Win 8.1 Shutdown/Black Screen Issue

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FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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I finally made the jump to Windows 8.1 64-bit on my personal system this week from Win7.

All has gone well, but today I have had the OS simply "turn off" twice. The OS shuts down/black screens immediately and the screens then go to sleep, but the computer itself is still powered up. I then have to manually power down the box and restart. Going into Event Viewer it simply shows this Kernel-Power error. "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Googling around did not turn up anything of relevance. It did install a couple of MS Office updates last night but nothing I think would impact the OS itself. I installed Classic Shell 4.1.0 so as to get back my Start menu, but that is the only thing I have done to modify the OS.

I am a newbie to 8.1 and if any of you have any ideas to share on this, I am all ears. Thanks.
 
Have you tried changing the power profile from Balanced to High Performance?
 
Got GTX 980 SLI in this box, I need to update my sig.

I ran through a series of updates yesterday after it happened twice and I have not seen this happen again.

I will look take a read on those other solutions you suggested, many thanks.
 
Well after a week of solid performance, it decided to start doing this again. I am going to enable the HIPM and DIPM as shown above and see if I get anything different.
 
My system does it too. Kinda. I click shutdown, then the "Shutting down system..." screen comes up which is quick, then screen goes black but my PC is still on for anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes, then it turns off fully. Event Viewer shows my PC going to sleep, but not the Kernel Power error since i don't have to manually power off.

I have always attributed it to Fast Startup which is a hibernate of sorts:

e07f796988.png


You can get to this screen by going to Power Options and then clicking "Choose what power buttons do" on the left.

Maybe turning it off will help.


EDIT: Just tried it and it works for me. Turns off immediately now.

Hope it's your solution as well.
 
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Well my issue is happening simply while using the computer, not TRYING to shut it down. :\
 
this sounds like an unstable overclock but we are dealing with you and you know your business so.. as others stated it could be the power options, check all off the advanced options of the power profile settings, one could be triggering this like switching some hard drive off, cpu power settings, etc.. another thing could be the Classic Shell, when i switched to win8 in 2012 i tested all of the available start menu replacements and decided for the Start8, yeah is not free but i found to be the best. i avoid recommending paid solutions but this is an exception, i think i paid 5 bucks for it, dont know how much it costs now but it was worthy.
 
D4rkn3ss said:
this sounds like an unstable overclock but we are dealing with you and you know your business so.. as others stated it could be the power options, check all off the advanced options of the power profile settings, one could be triggering this like switching some hard drive off, cpu power settings, etc.. another thing could be the Classic Shell, when i switched to win8 in 2012 i tested all of the available start menu replacements and decided for the Start8, yeah is not free but i found to be the best. i avoid recommending paid solutions but this is an exception, i think i paid 5 bucks for it, dont know how much it costs now but it was worthy.
Click to expand...

you have a very good point in that it could be a very simple software conflict......i used start is back before going to the newer build that doesn't requite it and felt it was worth every penny it cost......and that was another reason i suggested to at least try the preview if nothing else works

keep us posted Kyle;)
 
Nothing to do with an OC.

Does it with Classic Shell uninstalled as well.

Has not happened again. Guess I will wait another week and see.
 
My Win8.1 work PC started doing this a week or so ago as well. It doesn't just turn off during work, but it goes to sleep and then when you wake it you get the black screen although the PC is on.

For awhile I was hard shutting it down when it did this, but research showed that it was the PC not coming out of sleep correctly. If I woke it via keyboard or mouse, it wouldn't turn the GPU on. If I woke it via the power button, it comes up correctly. The work-around was that if I woke it via KB/mouse, I would hit the power button to put it back to sleep (how I have my power button configured), wait for it to sleep, and then hit the power button again.

Had no issues until it did updates around the beginning of October. Hard to narrow it down.

I'm installing Windows 10 preview tomorrow.
 
Hmmm, did it again today. I will give it some time and see if it is going to sleep on me.
 
Thing is, it is a fresh install, 14 days old. And all the software running on it now is needed.
 
I've had the same issue. It's intermittent for me, the same as it is for you, but I've not seen it happen for about a month now.

The last fix I've tried was to disable automatic updates, which may or may not solved the issue. I can still install updates manually without problems.
 
primetime said:
with all due respect...how long would it take to re install the needed software? I firmly believe you would be better of with the win tech preview.....I used win 8.1 for at least a year and the tech preview is heads and shoulders a better operating system....surly you have multiple drives...make an image backup before hand and if you don't like it 100% better its a breeze restoring the backup to where you are now....surly you have an extra usb flash drive to make another install disk;)
Click to expand...

Got the ISO sitting here now....Just don't really want to get into a fully non-supported OS for my daily use machine. I read up on a lot of the preview last night and there still seems to be a lot worked out in terms of daily use. So I am not sure that is a solution for me at the moment, but has not been totally discarded.
 
This may be out of left field, but could this be tied to shutdown/sleep keys on your keyboard? Perhaps some kind of compatibility issue that was not there with Win7? May be worth swapping to a generic keyboard just to see, assuming you keyboard has sleep/shutdown keys. I've worked desktop support for many years, and have had client's with some what similar issues, and they came down to input devices in many of these scenarios.
 
Something that sounds weird, but another thread mentioned - have you tried updating the firmware on your monitor?

Otherwise, try forcing SLI mode into AFR (and, obviously, make sure your bios and such are up to date).

You could take a second computer and hook it up in kernel debug mode... that way when it black screens you can try to see what's going on from another system :)
 
You could take a second computer and hook it up in kernel debug mode... that way when it black screens you can try to see what's going on from another system
Click to expand...
not to get off topic but if you could explain how this is done it be nice to know
 
Yes, the hardware is rock solid and has been running at stock clocks since the problem showed up.
 
I suggest a process of elimination. If it was me, I'd break the SLI and go with one card first. You've have a fairly new card, in SLI, on windows 8.1.

Then after that I'd switch out the power supply and then finally the MB.

Good luck.
 
I have no reason to believe this is a hardware issue since the power to the system does not shutdown, the OS blackscreens.
 
-edit-

What I'm attempting to say, is that you have fairly new hardware with a fairly new OS. The process of elimination could tell you what combination of this hardware is the issue.

And I agree, it might not turn out to be anything related to hardware combinations. It could be a quirk of windows 8.1.
 
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One thought came to mind.

Next time this happens....

Check if the "num lock" or "caps lock" key modifies the respective light on the keyboard.
 
Didn't Dan have a problem a while back with Crossfired Radeons causing a crash and it turned out to be a truly obscure bug with the motherboard chipset?
 
Alfred The Grey said:
-edit-

What I'm attempting to say, is that you have fairly new hardware with a fairly new OS. The process of elimination could tell you what combination of this hardware is the issue.

And I agree, it might not turn out to be anything related to hardware combinations. It could be a quirk of windows 8.1.
Click to expand...

The hardware has been rock solid for months with NO issues. The only time ANY issues have cropped up has been with the new OS.
 
my normal trouble shooting goes,
replace hardware (cable/cards) and check connections.
if hardware replacement works then its way easier to narrow down if its the hardware or software that is malfunctioning.
even if things has worked dont mean hardware cant gone bad along the way.
 
Flopper said:
my normal trouble shooting goes,
replace hardware (cable/cards) and check connections.
if hardware replacement works then its way easier to narrow down if its the hardware or software that is malfunctioning.
even if things has worked dont mean hardware cant gone bad along the way.
Click to expand...

Amen!
 
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