Ok I got home from work last night about 10:30 and I noticed that I was logged out of my profile and I never log out I just lock it. According to pc wizard the up time was about 5 1/2 hours yet I had left to go to work at 1:30. No one else messes with or uses my computer. The only errors I found in event viewer pertaining to a shut down where under custom views --> administrative events. I'm listing them here:

4:51:54

The previous system shutdown at 4:48:35 PM on 5/5/2009 was unexpected.

4:52:03

Audit events have been dropped by the transport. The real time backup file was corrupt due to improper shutdown.

All these tell me is that the computer rebooted. I thought that it could have been power but the clocks where all correct and I do not have it set in the BIOS to restart on power loss which I just confirmed. I also looked through the power settings and it is not set to put my computer to sleep and hibernation is disabled. So not only am I confused about why my computer shut down but I'm also more confused as to why it started back up. In addition the same thing happened last Friday. So does anyone have any ideas as to where I can look to perhaps find out what the happened? I do have SP 1 installed. I have done no hardware changes recently.

All that being said:

Any problems with the computer?

Any auto updaters that might have rebooted it?

No other problems except for the problem with 2003 the we discussed earlier. I have auto updates only set to notify me of updates so that can't be it. But it isn't something I thought of. Anything else?

I know lots of reasons could cause it to shutdown but to then reboot, I don't know how that would happen.

Audit events have been dropped by the transport. The real time backup file was corrupt due to improper shutdown. - Google Search

Are you running backup software?

Nope.

Unless my computer is experiencing some problems, I leave Event Viewer alone.

Does looking through event viewer hurt anything? You make it sound like it does. I opened it to try and figure out what happened.

So not only am I confused about why my computer shut down but I'm also more confused as to why it started back up.

I know lots of reasons could cause it to shutdown but to then reboot, I don't know how that would happen.

Computers do not "reboot" after a shutdown. They boot - when told to. Shutdown is a different command than Reboot/Restart. A shutdown also occurs when you yank out the power cord. The "shutdown" noted in the errors is a general term and does not imply the computer went through the process of closing open files, exiting programs and the OS "gracefully", then signaling the PSU to go to standby mode. Shutdown and then starting back up again implies some time lapses between the two separate events, and that would suggest some one, or some thing is signaling the motherboard to start the boot process. If it is not you, then perhaps Wake on LAN, Wake on Modem, Wake on Mouse or some other Wake command is enabled.

But if what's really happening is the system is actually "rebooting", that would point to a different set of possibilities. And since the time of the reported "shutdown" was 4:48:54 and the entry posted at 4:51:03 - barely 2 minutes, I would say your system rebooted, and did not shutdown, then boot.

So, you need to define your problem more clearly. I copied this from someone's signature,

For best results please:
1) State your OS(s), any software involed in your problem, & any major updates (i.e. service pack, version, edition, service release, roll up, beta release, distribution [Linux], etc.) to your OS/software as applicable to your problem.
2) For hardware issues also provide your system information: RAM, processor, etc. in addition to your OS.
3) If you have more than one OS on your computer, how does your problem relate to your other OS(s)? This is especially important for hardware issues.
4) Provide as much detail as possible, being specific as even the most minute detail could help others help you solve the problem. Please tell us what you have tried.
5) Respond with the result(s) of the suggestion(s) from the other users to provide feedback, even if this only means saying "this worked!"

Does looking through event viewer hurt anything?

It is a "viewer". It views event logs. The most you could do is clear the logs.

Unless my computer is experiencing some problems, I leave Event Viewer alone.

Me too. I rarely find them useful because computers can only predict the future. A computer is not able to foresee it will freeze in the next couple clock cycles. For some problems that do not involve sudden freezes or reboots, there is a chance you might see an odd entry moments before "the problem" occurs. Or an "after-the-fact" generic entry, similar to the unexpected notices you got. I generally just clear the logs and wait for the event to recur before thinking about viewing them again.

So do you need to know more info about my computer? For one thing this happens in Vista because I rarely run XP anymore. Maybe I should to see if it happens in XP. I take it that I should clear my logs and see whats shows up when it happens again but I'll wait for confirmation from you before I do that. Actually I don't know how to clear the logs. BTW it happened again last night after I went to bed. The entry was at 2:19 & the shutdown was at 2:17 so another 2 minutes. It doesn't take 2 minutes for my computer to boot up.

Some information entries before the shutdown is "The Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service entered the stopped state."[1:47] & "The Volume Shadow Copy service entered the stopped state." [1:44]. These are following the entries "DCOM started the service swprv with arguments "" in order to run the server: {65EE1DBA-8FF4-4A58-AC1C-3470EE2F376A}" & "The Volume Shadow Copy service entered the running state." both at 1:40.

One thing I can think of is that the last 2 times I was uploading files to adrive. I don't remember about the first time (last friday). Could a file upload cause it? I hope it happens again when I'm at it so I can see if it is blue screening.

System Info:

ASUS A8N5X 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard [Newegg]
OCZ Value Series 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) [Neweggg]--2GB Total
Radeon HD 4550 512 MB DDR 3 memory
Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-430 430W ATX12V 2.01 Power Supply [Newegg]
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Toledo 2.0GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 89W Dual-Core Processor [Newegg]
LINKSYS WUSB300N-BP IEEE 802.11b/g, IEEE 802.11n Draft USB 2.0 Wireless-N Network Adapter [Newegg]
2 WD SATA hard drives [80 GB & 750 GB {purchased 3 months ago} and a Seagate 250 GB IDE
ATI HDTV Wonder Remote Control Edition Tuner 100-714127 [Newegg]
Primary OSs: Vista Ultimate SP 1 integrated and XP Pro SP 3 installed.

No recent hardware changes other than the drive. Let me know if you need anything else.

So do you need to know more info about my computer?

That's good, thanks. Up to this point, I didn't even know if it was a PC or notebook (since you mentioned hibernation, normally associated with notebooks).

ASUS is certainly one of the better makers so they have been using better quality capacitors for some time. Still, I would inspect for any leaky and bulging capacitors next time you peek inside.

It sounds like an issue with your backup service. I would check all your scheduled events to see if there are any conflicts - especially with antimalware scanners. I would probably reschedule everything, just to "refresh" the settings.