Computer Totally Cut Off!?

Question

For the 2nd time this week, I found my computer totally shut down while the screensaver had been on for some time. I have a Broadband connection but even the 2 green lights on the speedtouch modem were off! What on earth is going on? Nothing else has shut off in the flat. Any explanations?

Answer 1

It sounds like the part of youe electrical mains that powers the sockets where your computer and modem are plugged in has a problem.

This is going to sound really weird, but do you own a pet?

The exact same thing happened to me and it turned out my cat had peed on the power strip...

Seriously, though, I would also check that the PC has shut down normally or gone to sleep.  If you run Vista it will do that after about an hour by default.

If you reboot the machine and you get a message saying that windows did not shut down correctly last time, you'll know that the power was cut off.

If you press the power button and you get a log in screen with the word "locked" under your symbol, you'll know it just went to sleep.