My new "Energy Saver" MOBO keeps shutting down my PC

My motherboard is a Gigabyte G31M-ES2L (BIOS Version FF) with an E8500 CPU, 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM, and a 9800GT GPU on a Windows 7 Home 32-bit. The MOBO is one of those "Energy Savers" and I'm trying to download some games (that I have legally purchased through digital distribution) and leave my machine be while I do other things. Everytime I come back to check on how far my downloads have come along I notice that my computer is in Sleep Mode, which pauses the downloads. I have been looking online about this, but have come up with nothing. Does anyone know how I can stop it from shutting down by itself?! Thanks!!

Also, I know that nothing's overheating. I ran a monitor and everything is running nice and cool.

First, check all your settings in the BIOS to see if there's any kind of auto power-off setting turned on.

Second, and more likely, you should change your Win 7 power settings.

Right-click on the desktop and choose "Personalize" - this will bring up your screen saver. At the bottom you will see "Change Power Settings" click that. If you're settings are currently on anything like "Balanced" or "Power Saver" - you'll want to "Change Plan Settings" to "High Performance" - once you are set to High Performance, apply the setting, then re-open your power settings again.

Make sure High Performance is still your setting, and click Change Plan Setting
- Turn off the Display (mine is never - I just turn it off physically)
- Put the computer to sleep (mine is also never)

You can also click "Change Advanced Power Settings"
Hard Disk - turn off hard disk after - mine is set to 999 minutes
Wireless Adapter - Power Saving Mode - Maximum Performance (if applicable)
Sleep - Sleep After - Never / Allow Hybrid Sleep - Off / Hibernate after - Never / Allow wake timers - enable (doesn't really matter)
USB Setttings - USB selective suspend setting - Disabled
Power buttons and lid - power button action - Shut Down
PCI Express - link state power management - Off
Processor power management - system cooling policy - Active
Display - Turn off display after - Never
Multimedia settings - When sharing media - prevent idling to sleep / When Playing video - optimize video quality

Then Apply those settings, and click OK, then apply/ok all other windows making sure your power is still set to High Performance

This should take care of your problems - maybe even the "Put the computer to sleep" would take care of it :)

Edit: Like he said - you can also get to power settings through the control panel.

Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settingssuperclocked

Yes indeed!! I had JUST discovered that. Thanks for your help. So, that's not even a feature of the MOBO thenI assume?? Just a Windows function??

First, check all your settings in the BIOS to see if there's any kind of auto power-off setting turned on.

Second, and more likely, you should change your Win 7 power settings.

Right-click on the desktop and choose "Personalize" - this will bring up your screen saver. At the bottom you will see "Change Power Settings" click that. If you're settings are currently on anything like "Balanced" or "Power Saver" - you'll want to "Change Plan Settings" to "High Performance" - once you are set to High Performance, apply the setting, then re-open your power settings again.

Make sure High Performance is still your setting, and click Change Plan Setting
- Turn off the Display (mine is never - I just turn it off physically)
- Put the computer to sleep (mine is also never)

You can also click "Change Advanced Power Settings"
Hard Disk - turn off hard disk after - mine is set to 999 minutes
Wireless Adapter - Power Saving Mode - Maximum Performance (if applicable)
Sleep - Sleep After - Never / Allow Hybrid Sleep - Off / Hibernate after - Never / Allow wake timers - enable (doesn't really matter)
USB Setttings - USB selective suspend setting - Disabled
Power buttons and lid - power button action - Shut Down
PCI Express - link state power management - Off
Processor power management - system cooling policy - Active
Display - Turn off display after - Never
Multimedia settings - When sharing media - prevent idling to sleep / When Playing video - optimize video quality

Then Apply those settings, and click OK, then apply/ok all other windows making sure your power is still set to High Performance

This should take care of your problems - maybe even the "Sleep After" would take care of it :)

Stinger78

Thank you!! I shall take those actions as well.

Power settings / screen saver settings can sometimes cause issues while playing games - when I was running Vista the screen saver would cause my games to tab-out and I wouldn't be able to get back in to continue playing, I'd have to force the game to quit. I only knew it was the screen saver because it would happen every 15-20 minutes while playing - which was the default screen saver time.

The USB power setting mode / sleep mode was causing some issues for a lady's PC - basically she had a usb wireless internet adapter, and after so much time her pc would have to "wake up" and her internet access would be dead. Win 7 was shutting off her usb adapter. Once some of the power plan settings were changed - no more issues.