Computer randomly shuts down

[Captain Sierra]

My rig decided to randomly shut down on me today. This wasn't windows or some other program doing a restart, this was a hard shutdown as though I'd pulled the cord out. Ordinarily I wouldn't actually be concerned, as I'm pulling close to my power supply max wattage and slight dips in local power (not uncommon) can do this to me. Mow, it did it to me again. I have not booted it back up so I can check the crash logs.

Rig is a custom build under a year old so hardware going bad is unlikely. Because it didn't blue-screen on me I'm a bit unsure where to go digging for said logs or other troubleshooting references. Advice apreciated.

[Flymetothemun]

Are you sure you aren't overheating? My comp used to shut down from overheating all the time until I cleaned out the fans and vents; turned out there was a veritable carpet of dust clogging them and preventing cooling. Just look inside for a bunch of dust in the fans, on the vents, or on any heatsinks. Hot summer weather probably isn't helping either, in the winter I never had any overheating problems even with clogged cooling apparatus. If there is any get the dust out with a can of that compressed air you find at office stores. You can also do what I do and use a bunch of q-tips until the dust is gone. In the case of dense heatsinks and other things that are difficult to visually inspect, use the q-tips until they come out of the apparatus clean.

[Captain Sierra]

Being stupidly paranoid about heating from my old laptop, my gut reaction is to put my and to the exhaust fans. Didn't feel ant hotter than normal. Processor using factory cooler but with arctic silver thermal grease.

I don't believe in coincidence with computers so I'll mention that both times were during games of CS:GO (and my system is beefy enough that doesn't tax it).

Will give a quick look yo the intake filter in the morning

[Flymetothemun]

Being stupidly paranoid about heating from my old laptop, my gut reaction is to put my and to the exhaust fans. Didn't feel ant hotter than normal. Processor using factory cooler but with arctic silver thermal grease.

I don't believe in coincidence with computers so I'll mention that both times were during games of CS:GO (and my system is beefy enough that doesn't tax it).

Will give a quick look yo the intake filter in the morning

Your CPU sink & fan might also have a bunch of dust in them, that's mostly why comps shut down from heat, the CPU has a temp sensor in it and if it gets too hot it'll shut the computer down so that it doesn't get damaged. I'd check them both and clean them out if they're dirty; A CPU with dirty cooling apparatus is like a car without enough fluid in the radiator.

[Guest]

Voltage drops can also be caused by inadequate or substandard house wiring, defective outlet, or maybe even a worn out breaker. Does your pc share a circuit with any other appliances, like maybe a window air conditioner? What you describe definitely sounds like a thermal shutdown, but, maybe a digital multimeter should also be used to monitor the ac voltage of your pc's outlet. Check to make sure voltage is staying at 110v ac or more. I like seeing voltages of 115v ac or more. (up to about 125v ac, anything over 125v and I would start getting nervous). And the numbers I'm talking about here are for the U.S. Other countries may be different, but the same principle would still stand. You want your voltages to stay in safe operating ranges for your equipment. And, in my experience, problems are more often than not caused by failures within or close to the residence, either in the residence's wiring, or breaker box, or the electric meter(from corrosion or insects like waspers).

[kiwi1960]

You have trhe same promblem I'm having right now with an old ISP server I have...

The problem is the power supply... it doesn't need to over heat to just shut down, it just does.

You will have more luck as you can easily buy a new PSU.... the one for my server will set me back NZ$500 .... so count your blessings....

and no.... I'm not going to spend that much on a PSU, I'm going to junk it.....

[Captain Sierra]

Voltage drops can also be caused by inadequate or substandard house wiring, defective outlet, or maybe even a worn out breaker. Does your pc share a circuit with any other appliances, like maybe a window air conditioner? What you describe definitely sounds like a thermal shutdown, but, maybe a digital multimeter should also be used to monitor the ac voltage of your pc's outlet. Check to make sure voltage is staying at 110v ac or more. I like seeing voltages of 115v ac or more. (up to about 125v ac, anything over 125v and I would start getting nervous). And the numbers I'm talking about here are for the U.S. Other countries may be different, but the same principle would still stand. You want your voltages to stay in safe operating ranges for your equipment. And, in my experience, problems are more often than not caused by failures within or close to the residence, either in the residence's wiring, or breaker box, or the electric meter(from corrosion or insects like waspers).

I live in the middle of redneck nowhere, so I don't believe its my house wiring as much as it is the power infrastructure around here. My PSU can output 600 watts and I'm pulling almost 550 of those at max load. I have no doubt I'm highly susceptible to that. Just that 2 in one day both while playing CS:GO raised some red flags (anyone who's built their own rig knows that thing is like your baby, and when your baby starts having problems you get concerned).

You have trhe same promblem I'm having right now with an old ISP server I have...

The problem is the power supply... it doesn't need to over heat to just shut down, it just does.

You will have more luck as you can easily buy a new PSU.... the one for my server will set me back NZ$500 .... so count your blessings....

and no.... I'm not going to spend that much on a PSU, I'm going to junk it.....

My power supply is a 600W Corsair and its less than a year old. I know I run it hard, but Corsair is a sufficiently reputable brand name. I don't think my PSU would be going bad already.

[cantab]

Monitor your CPU and GPU temperatures while playing your games, that will tell you if it's overheating or not. I had similar sudden shutdowns when playing KSP many moons ago, and I found the CPU was hitting 90+ Celsius with only one (of three) cores loaded. I blew out all the dust from in between the fins in the CPU heatsink and after that it stayed under 50 C even with all cores loaded.

[ColKlonk]

PSU units have a 'Power Good' (PG) sensor.. if this trips, down everything goes.

Try not running your PSU at greater than 75% it's rating. Above this puts you in the ballpark for random shutdowns from the PG.

PSUs are more 'intelligent' nowdays also sensing the input power check that it's within spec.

Even a glitch of one AC power cycle will put you in the red zone, if you're max'ing your PSU.

If you have $$$ to spare get a small 'on-line' APU backup (inverter) unit which will help eliminate the input side problem, if it exists.

[GERULA]

same problem here, this game only today it shut down my PC 4 times, no error, no bsod nothing, direct restart of my PC

in past I was having only crashing regularly at 40~ 50 minutes like everybody else due to how idotic this game is build, but now it switched to screwing my PC

I have this game since 0.14...but now after years, is too much to take it, non stop crash if you dare to use couple mods, without them..its same, from loving this game to I fo...hate it!

 

[steve_v]

3 hours ago, GERULA said:

same problem here, this game only today it shut down my PC 4 times, no error, no bsod nothing, direct restart of my PC

in past I was having only crashing regularly at 40~ 50 minutes like everybody else due to how idotic this game is build, but now it switched to screwing my PC

Dude, whut? There's no way for software to "screw" a PC, if you have unexpected shutdowns it's almost certainly a hardware fault or overheating. Unless KSP is directly calling the BIOS to initiate a hard reboot (which it isn't), it's simply not possible. OS or driver crashes might be able to cause something like this, but certainly not a game.

Have you load tested your machine?
Have you monitored component temperatures?
Have you tested your RAM?
Have you tested your PSU?

There are many potential causes for this, KSP is about the most unlikely I can think of - your assuming it's the game because it happens after playing for a while: Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Edited December 10, 2015 by steve_v
More. This kind of faulty logic irritates me.

[cantab]

As previously mentioned, shutting down when you play a game strongly suggests either overheating or power problems, As coolers get dusty and the PSU ages this can become more likely. Overheats are easy to check. There's a chance it's a graphics driver crash, forced Windows updates can easily replace yesterday's driver that worked with today's that doesn't.

[Slam_Jones]

In my own experience, random shutdowns have always been due to overheating.  You might need to apply some new thermal paste and clean all the dust out.

Oddly enough, my PC currently has the opposite problem... I'll put it to sleep when I'm going to bed and like an hour later I realize that my room is glowing: the PC is on again.  Get up, put it back to sleep, and then it stays, thankfully... :|

Either my PC is possessed or there's some weird wiring going on.

[GERULA]

after tons of crashes due to memory limit, it switched to the next level....because this game is build BAD, I think he loads all his file into our procs or ram memory and somehow it just keeps them there and grow more and more and wants more ram more voltage... more.. and this really stress 'our' CPU, GPU, RAM and by this..also the PSU..who wont last longer if its "cheap" as mine who i'm not a rich guy to afford an expensive one

last couple months I was playing only this game, and in the end this game really fokt my PC,  I was playing him when suddenly it restart my PC..it did once, twice, 4 times..now I have this problem with all my games...I tried all possible methods to fix it, clean my entire PC, I disassembled the whole video card and power suply to clean it of dust, you name them and I try them all ..so in the end I gone on "tomshardware" to ask for help, the answer came simple:

 

"The PSU is the reason why its rebooting.

It isn't the CPU or Hardware in general, its the PSU. This is not because its slow or bad, this is because some games can destroy PSU's which aren't above 750w (This is only for people who have cheap PSU's) Results like this show that the power effiency when you are playing games is reaching to the max! And this is not all games, I'm talking about games like Splinter Cell Blacklist, Battlefield 4, Crysis 3 and much more.

Whats happening here is that the MOBO is deciding to reboot the system due the high power efficiency, now I believe you can change this in the BIOS but I wouldn't recommend it due to the fact that the PSU can BLOW up. So my advice is to buy a new PSU from CORSAIR of XFX mainly and try to get a gold rated one...."

 

p;s non of the above games will start using 1.5 gb ram and edit it with 4gb ram..

[The Destroyer]

On 10/08/2015, 06:34:53, Captain Sierra said:

I live in the middle of redneck nowhere, so I don't believe its my house wiring as much as it is the power infrastructure around here. My PSU can output 600 watts and I'm pulling almost 550 of those at max load. I have no doubt I'm highly susceptible to that. Just that 2 in one day both while playing CS:GO raised some red flags (anyone who's built their own rig knows that thing is like your baby, and when your baby starts having problems you get concerned).

My power supply is a 600W Corsair and its less than a year old. I know I run it hard, but Corsair is a sufficiently reputable brand name. I don't think my PSU would be going bad already.

I too have a 600W Crosair PSU. Is it a CX brand? I know those are perhaps popular budget ones, (I have one) but apparently not very high grade like their other lines. Running it at nearly its maximum capacity, if it's a CX600, sounds bad. Else, get something like speedfan and check the temps

[Nuke]

capacitor aging. you do all the math, add up all the wattages, you test your draw and make sure everything is good. then a couple years later your capacitor values start creeping (or they outright burst and stop being capacitors) and your psu is suddenly out of spec. if you are me, you replce the caps, if you are anyone else, you buy a new psu.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Nuke

[steve_v]

11 hours ago, GERULA said:

after tons of crashes due to memory limit, it switched to the next level....because this game is build BAD, I think he loads all his file into our procs or ram memory and somehow it just keeps them there and grow more and more and wants more ram more voltage... more.. and this really stress 'our' CPU, GPU, RAM and by this..also the PSU..who wont last longer if its "cheap" as mine who i'm not a rich guy to afford an expensive one

last couple months I was playing only this game, and in the end this game really fokt my PC,  I was playing him when suddenly it restart my PC..it did once, twice, 4 times..now I have this problem with all my games...I tried all possible methods to fix it, clean my entire PC, I disassembled the whole video card and power suply to clean it of dust, you name them and I try them all ..so in the end I gone on "tomshardware" to ask for help, the answer came simple:

 

"The PSU is the reason why its rebooting.

It isn't the CPU or Hardware in general, its the PSU. This is not because its slow or bad, this is because some games can destroy PSU's which aren't above 750w (This is only for people who have cheap PSU's) Results like this show that the power effiency when you are playing games is reaching to the max! And this is not all games, I'm talking about games like Splinter Cell Blacklist, Battlefield 4, Crysis 3 and much more.

Whats happening here is that the MOBO is deciding to reboot the system due the high power efficiency, now I believe you can change this in the BIOS but I wouldn't recommend it due to the fact that the PSU can BLOW up. So my advice is to buy a new PSU from CORSAIR of XFX mainly and try to get a gold rated one...."

 

p;s non of the above games will start using 1.5 gb ram and edit it with 4gb ram..

Oh dear.
As someone who works with power electronics in my day job, I can only react to misinformation like this in one way:

"wants more ram more voltage": A process can't "want more voltage" - If you're talking about CPU Vcore or DRAM voltage, that's set by the hardware / BIOS - to the manufacturers curves no less, unless you mess with it manually.

"this really stress 'our' CPU, GPU, RAM": Yeah, a process or game can stress hardware - but if your hardware can't take it, then it's not performing up to spec.

As for your "answer" from tomshardware:

"its the PSU. This is not because its slow or bad" - "slow" doesn't really apply to PSUs, and if your PSU is dropping the ball (PowerGood signal) it's because it's undersized, or... you guessed it: it is "Bad".

"some games can destroy PSU's which aren't above 750w" - krakens. If your PSU is too small or not performing up to spec, yeah. But the game doesn't define the power required, the load connected to the PSU does. "you need more than 750w", as a blanket statement, is ridiculous - to determine how much power you need, you need to measure... how much power your hardware actually needs.

"Results like this show that the power effiency when you are playing games is reaching to the max!" - this is pure male bovine excrement, probably posted by someone who has no clue what efficiency actually means.

"the MOBO is deciding to reboot the system due the high power efficiency": Just no. What else can I say, this is not how it works at all. Replace "high power efficiency" with "low power quality" and it gets closer.

"PSU can BLOW up." If this happens, your PSU is undersized and missing critical protection circuits, or just plain broken. - Again, nothing to do with the game or the BIOS.

The only part of that advice worth listening to is: "It's probably the PSU" (as others have suggested here) and "Buy a decent PSU".
I'm sure XFX and Corsair are nice, but they're by no means the only purveyors of not-complete-garbage switchmode power supplies.

Personally, most of my machines have Antec PSUs, and I've had no trouble from them - even when testing well above rated output, where they simply shut down gracefully. OTOH, I have had cheap "no brand" Chinese units that fail catastrophically (magic smoke escape) at less than 50% of sticker rating.

Each to their own with regard to favourite brands, but as the saying goes: "you get what you pay for". The PSU is arguably the most important item of hardware in a PC - all the other components depend on it for stable operation. It's also one of the few that can completely ruin your other hardware when it fails.

TL,DR: Go buy a decent PSU from a reputable brand, ensure that it can actually produce the continuous output power your hardware configuration requires. Then see if the problem goes away.

Edited December 12, 2015 by steve_v

[Flymetothemun]

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

Oh dear.
As someone who works with power electronics in my day job, I can only react to misinformation like this in one way:

"wants more ram more voltage": A process can't "want more voltage" - If you're talking about CPU Vcore or DRAM voltage, that's set by the hardware / BIOS - to the manufacturers curves no less, unless you mess with it manually.

"this really stress 'our' CPU, GPU, RAM": Yeah, a process or game can stress hardware - but if your hardware can't take it, then it's not performing up to spec.

As for your "answer" from tomshardware:

"its the PSU. This is not because its slow or bad" - "slow" doesn't really apply to PSUs, and if your PSU is dropping the ball (PowerGood signal) it's because it's undersized, or... you guessed it: it is "Bad".

"some games can destroy PSU's which aren't above 750w" - krakens. If your PSU is too small or not performing up to spec, yeah. But the game doesn't define the power required, the load connected to the PSU does. "you need more than 750w", as a blanket statement, is ridiculous - to determine how much power you need, you need to measure... how much power your hardware actually needs.

"Results like this show that the power effiency when you are playing games is reaching to the max!" - this is pure male bovine excrement, probably posted by someone who has no clue what efficiency actually means.

"the MOBO is deciding to reboot the system due the high power efficiency": Just no. What else can I say, this is not how it works at all. Replace "high power efficiency" with "low power quality" and it gets closer.

"PSU can BLOW up." If this happens, your PSU is undersized and missing critical protection circuits, or just plain broken. - Again, nothing to do with the game or the BIOS.

The only part of that advice worth listening to is: "It's probably the PSU" (as others have suggested here) and "Buy a decent PSU".
I'm sure XFX and Corsair are nice, but they're by no means the only purveyors of not-complete-garbage switchmode power supplies.

Personally, most of my machines have Antec PSUs, and I've had no trouble from them - even when testing well above rated output, where they simply shut down gracefully. OTOH, I have had cheap "no brand" Chinese units that fail catastrophically (magic smoke escape) at less than 50% of sticker rating.

Each to their own with regard to favourite brands, but as the saying goes: "you get what you pay for". The PSU is arguably the most important item of hardware in a PC - all the other components depend on it for stable operation. It's also one of the few that can completely ruin your other hardware when it fails.

TL,DR: Go buy a decent PSU from a reputable brand, ensure that it can actually produce the continuous output power your hardware configuration requires. Then see if the problem goes away.

As somebody who has a mild interest in electronics, how can somebody be that stupid? Exploding power supplies? Malfunctions because of efficiency? Talk about stupid. That's getting dangerously close to politician stupid. Whoever wrote the answer Gerula quoted must be denser than depleted uranium. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by Flymetothemun

[steve_v]

18 minutes ago, Flymetothemun said:

As somebody who has a mild interest in electronics, how can somebody be that stupid?

Beats me, but since "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" I'm betting this "answer" (and I use the term very lightly) was provided by a dog. A particularly stupid dog.

@GERULA Please provide me with the identity of the fool that posted that garbage on tomshardware, I have a nice blunt pitchfork with a blank name-tag ready to go.*

*Not to be taken seriously, however I hope I have made my opinion of his/her/its advice plain.

Edited December 12, 2015 by steve_v