Broken PSU or GPU?

[yoshinator123]

Hello!
So recently my computer has been restarting itself when under stress (eg during gaming).
My motherboard has built in defense mechanisms and tells me that it prevented damage to the mobo from a power surge with each unexpected reboot. This makes me think that the PSU is on its way out, as it's pretty old at this point (4 to 5 years old). However, I do have a spare GPU and tested the system under stress again. With the old card, depending on the game, it usually crashes the computer in around 20 mins, but with the new card it did not crash at all.

The difficulty I'm having in diagnosing this exact problem lies in the fact that this new card consumes around 100 fewer watts than the old card, so it's less strain on the PSU. As well, while playing certain games the video feed would cut to black veeeeery occasionally, then be undetectable by the monitor until the HDMI cable was reinserted into the HDMI port. This has been going on for about a year but is mainly contained to Overwatch for whatever reason.

I've confirmed that heat is not the culprit in any case, as CPU temp doesn't go beyond 60 degrees and GPU temp doesn't go beyond around 75 degrees.

Specs:
Core i7-5820k
Old card: GTX 980 ti
Test card: GTX 660 ti
PSU: Seasonic X-Series 650W (X-650)
Mobo: ASUS X-99A

I've just reseated the old 980 ti and I'm going to test it again real quick.
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[chewtech]

I don't know to much, and I highly doubt this is it, but I just wanna at least throw an idea out there.
Maybe the older power supply draws less watts, and the power supply can't handle the newer one right now. I doubt that's it, but I just thought I'd throw out a random idea.

 

[yoshinator123]

I don't know to much, and I highly doubt this is it, but I just wanna at least throw an idea out there.
Maybe the older power supply draws less watts, and the power supply can't handle the newer one right now. I doubt that's it, but I just thought I'd throw out a random idea.

You mean to say that the PSU is underperforming and can't support the 980 GPU which requires more watts? Because I had the same idea if so.

 

[chewtech]

That's what I meant, I don't know to much about these things, just enough to get me by. But that was the first sorta common sense idea I had, hoping that's all you problem is.

 

[TadashiTG]

It could very much be the PSU not being able to hold up to the power demand of the 980 Ti.

Can you test with furmark to bring power to the max and see how it goes?

 

[yoshinator123]

It could very much be the PSU not being able to hold up to the power demand of the 980 Ti.

Can you test with furmark to bring power to the max and see how it goes?

I'll get back to you about that asap gotta run an errand

 

[R_1]

in your card switching did you remove and install the correct drivers?

as to the PSU, if it is the issue it is still under warranty, call seasonic and ask about a advance RMA. they will charge you for a new PSU and ship one out, you return the old one and they refund the money. I do not know if they do this but it will keep your downtime to a minimum.

you really need another PSU to test with. do you have access to another PSU for testing? Friend, sibling, anyone?

you could also try making a UBS linux drive and boot to that for testing and see of the same happens in a new environment.

 

[yoshinator123]

in your card switching did you remove and install the correct drivers?

as to the PSU, if it is the issue it is still under warranty, call seasonic and ask about a advance RMA. they will charge you for a new PSU and ship one out, you return the old one and they refund the money. I do not know if they do this but it will keep your downtime to a minimum.

you really need another PSU to test with. do you have access to another PSU for testing? Friend, sibling, anyone?

you could also try making a UBS linux drive and boot to that for testing and see of the same happens in a new environment.

Drivers were uninstalled and reinstalled per GPU swap, but I unfortunately don't have access to another PSU and my current one is no longer under warranty.

 

[yoshinator123]

It could very much be the PSU not being able to hold up to the power demand of the 980 Ti.

Can you test with furmark to bring power to the max and see how it goes?

I ran Furmark for about 20 minutes and it surprisingly never crashed the computer. I'm sure if I ran it longer it would have restarted.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

 

[yoshinator123]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

I don't think that will stop the unexpected restarts though.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

I don't think that will stop the unexpected restarts though.

It's only restarting because of Asus' anti-surge. If you disable that in the BIOS it won't restart anymore. And if you get freezes or something then anti-surge was right that something is wrong. But if everything is fine afterwards, then it was just anti-surge acting funky.

 

[yoshinator123]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

I don't think that will stop the unexpected restarts though.

It's only restarting because of Asus' anti-surge. If you disable that in the BIOS it won't restart anymore. And if you get freezes or something then anti-surge was right that something is wrong. But if everything is fine afterwards, then it was just anti-surge acting funky.

Edit: When it boots up again does it say that anti-surge protection turned it off? I seemed to think it was but you didn't say in your original post.

Okay I'll give that a shot

 

[yoshinator123]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

Unfortunately the restarts persist.

 

[yoshinator123]

At this point I'm almost positive it is in fact the PSU that is failing. I've experienced a failing PSU before and this is almost identical; I just couldn't confirm it beyond any doubt.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

Unfortunately the restarts persist.

Does it still tell you it prevented damage to the mobo from a power surge? Can you take an image of this message and post it here?

 

[yoshinator123]

You could always just disable Asus anti-surge. Chances are everything is perfectly fine. This anti-surge thing is only a thing on Asus motherboards. I feel like it causes problems for people once in a while when there's no real problem.

Unfortunately the restarts persist.

Does it still tell you it prevented damage to the mobo from a power surge? Can you take an image of this message and post it here?

No it behaves as if I had pressed the restart button, ie it boots straight into windows.
The image attached is not of my computer but the message in the pic is the exact same

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It still says anti-surge triggered. You must not have disabled it, because if it was disabled it would not say it triggered.

Edit: Unless you mean this is the image for before you disabled anti-surge.?

 

[yoshinator123]

It still says anti-surge triggered. You must not have disabled it, because if it was disabled it would not say it triggered.

Edit: Unless you mean this is the image for before you disabled anti-surge.?

I thought I was clear but what I meant was that antisurge is not triggered, the computer just reboots unexpectedly.

 

[TadashiTG]

That sounds like a PSU issue to me.

One thing you could do is make sure all power plugs are inserted properly. Otherwise new PSU.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Yeah could be the PSU.

 

[R_1]

if the unit has no warranty replace it ASAP.
a faulted power supply can destroy anything connected to it, slowly or instantly*. I do not trust a PSU, ANY PSU outside of its warranty.

*slowly killing the parts via out of spec power degrading circuits
Instantly killing via massive voltage dump to the parts