Perhaps the heatsink fan has quit, then computer will indeed shut down to protect the processor (CPU) If a desktop remove the side panel to see if the fan is spinning up, if a laptop feel the outlet for the air it will be on the side, back or bottom. Or if the computer stays running long enough download Speccy from Filehippo and run it to see your temps. Stay with the free version. Does the computer run for seconds, minutes or longer before shutting down?

Unfortunately my sudden refusal to shutdown, seems to be quite regular. I click "Turn Off From the Start Menu" We get to the windows is now (closing)shutting down screen, the jingle plays...and we are not on nor off. Its Microsoft limbo hell. Mouse control has shut down. Can I delete .Net Framework 2.2 without hell to pay? My gut feeling is my problems are stemming from .net or the Merc board. The Merc board once shut down my Morrowind game and cancelled the tilde key assignment. Even Bethesda Softworks said there was nothing I could do. Ideazon support told me to upgrade my all keyboard drivers to hid, and that (unknowingly) knocked out the PS2 keyboard drivers used by the laser mouse assignments...it wasn't until I redownloaded the laser mouse drivers, did everything start to work. I can now cheat on my game to my hearts' content. (The tilde key brings up a game console where dirty little cheaters, like me, can enter codes to cheat.) This driver install and uninstall freeze with this crappy keyboard, that I'm stuck with to save money, is going to break me. It might have caused some problems. I had to reboot my computer from the default settings in bios. Although there was a warning on the Microsoft update site about one of .net updates rendering some computers unresponsive? Well! gee. I CANNOT DO A SYSTEM RESTORE! I tried a few different restore points...and honest to Pete!...I got this message saying the system hadn't changed so they weren't going to bother, there wasn't any point!? I mean, I never!!! What the????

yes it will have a pop up down by the clock, be sure you do not have yours in the hidden icons thing if you do you can move it down onto the bar so you can see it better. Just make sure when you make your choice you pick the one that says notify me do not install or something like that.

Asus build a good board mostly, used many of them myself. Currently have a flaky Gigabyte board I need to replace with a lesser Biostar I have here. computer status protected by windows Are you suggesting you have no anti virus or no anti malware programs installed? When did you last remove the left side panel and clean out the dust bunnies that tend to build up in these things? Perhaps the computer is shutting down due to excessive heat, try removing the left side panel for a while and see if that helps. This is not a permanent fix but will give us somewhere to start from. If you feel it may be heat related you might try installing the free version of Speccy. This will give you lots of information including temp readings. You can also get these of course by entering the BIOS on startup but you get details without the computer being under load.