unexpected shutdown

Hi,

Could be heat related - try using a small fan to blow into the air intakes to see if that helps.
Does it just act like it loses power or does it shutdown in a normal manner?

Remove ALL power and reseat all card, memory, and cables (both ends) - actually remove
and replace - do not just snug. Remove the dust bunnies and clean the vents. Check that the
fans work (before and after opening the case). If a laptop about all you can do is reseat the
memory and clean the vents (still can try adding a small fan as a test).

This sounds like hardware so if the above does not help then you probably need the help of a
real computer shop (not leeks and peeks at a Best Buy or other Big Box Stores) or the System
maker's Support.

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Check with these utilities to see if any information can be gathered :

This is an excellent tool for posting Blue Screen Error Information

BlueScreenView - Free - scans all your minidump files created during 'blue screen of death' crashes,
and displays the information about all crashes in one table.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

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MyEventViewer can be checked at the time of the BlueScreen (BSOD) to within a second or so of the
time of the BSOD to provide more information as to possible cause - see TIP.

MyEventViewer - Free - a simple alternative to the standard event viewer of Windows.
TIP - Options - Advanced Filter allows you to see a time frame instead of the whole file -
set it to a bit before and after the time of the BSOD.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/my_event_viewer.html

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AppCrashView - Free - a small utility for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that displays the details of all
application crashes occurred in your system. The crashes information is extracted from the .wer
files created by the Windows Error Reporting (WER) component of the operating system every
time that a crash is occurred. AppCrashView also allows you to easily save the crashes list to
text/csv/html/xml file.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/app_crash_view.html

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Also do this so you can see the likely bluescreens. (You may or may not be able to see
them if they occur even after doing this depending on the cause.)

Windows Vista automatically restarts if your PC encounters an error that causes it to crash.
(also Windows 7)
http://www.winvistatips.com/disable-automatic-restart-t84.html

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What antivirus/antispyware/security products do you have on machine? Include any you have EVER
had on this machine including those you uninstalled (they leave remnants behind which can cause
strange issues).

Hope this helps.