Random Shut Down

This has been aggravating me for the last week: Every time I start a game, everything runs fine, then my computer randomly shuts down after 5-10 minutes. I am having trouble diagnosing the problem because there doesn't appear to be any issues leading up to it. Usually I can tell if something is overheating, or running hotter/louder than usual, but I get nothing.

I'm thinking it might be a power supply issue - any suggestions or insight would be great. This only happens when I start a game up - I've watched movies and TV, and kept my computer on for long periods of time to isolate the issue - and it only happens after I load up a game and start playing.

If it's only happening when you're starting a game, sounds like it could be the GPU running hot. You're right in that you can usually hear when something is running hotter / louder, but if there's an issue with a fan somewhere and it's not kicking into a higher RPM when it needs it (i.e. when you launch a game), it's going to run hot and lock up / reboot.

Could also be a bad DIMM and, like you said, something related to the PSU (maybe even not providing enough power sometimes).

What kind of GPU are you running? Do you have the software installed for it that's used to manage temperatures, fan speed, clock speed, etc?

One quick thing you can do (if possible), pop open the case and watch the card (if you can easily see it) when you launch the game. See if it may be a fan issue on the card. Also, simple step...check for dust, etc... around fans, heatsinks, etc...

First thing I would check is the power supply.

If you have an amd gpu and you've recently updated drivers there's a bug causing the fan speed to stay at 20% on the gpu. Grab msi afterburner and set a custom fan curve. That fixes it.

If that's not it grab combuster and stress test gpu while watching temps with something like gpuz

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by AOD_BritishBob

If you have an amd gpu and you've recently updated drivers there's a bug causing the fan speed to stay at 20% on the gpu. Grab msi afterburner and set a custom fan curve. That fixes it.

If that's not it grab combuster and stress test gpu while watching temps with something like gpuz

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

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This may have been the issue, coupled with the power supply (because I recall that it wasn't a problem 2 weeks ago). I switched the GPU plug with the other PCIEx plug on the PS and it hasn't shut down since. However, I have been experienced random lag that I noticed while playing Alien: Isolation today. It appeared to stem from my anti-aliasing settings - and then continued (but the frame lag intervals were further apart).

I've been using an AMD 7870 - one of the fans busted about 7 months ago and I superglued a case fan onto the GPU (which surprisingly fixed the issue until now lol). I just picked up a Gefore 970 and a new power supply today though. I'm going to stick those in there, and hopefully that fixes any more issues. Thanks for the insight/info guys - had no idea about the AMD drivers, but that explains a lot.

Firstly superglue?!?

Hopefully none got on any parts

Secondly 90% of the time a random shut down especially while playing games is a heating issue.

AMD drivers would not cause a shut down, they would crash & force windows to recover (CTD + black screen). A total hardware shutdown is an emergency system in place to protect hardware (or a faulty mobo/psu). Either way you seem to have it sorted