Question Can anyone explain what went wrong and how to troubleshoot?

Deshong

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May 11, 2013
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My computer:

Win 10 Pro 64-Bit

16 GB RAM - Forza DDR4 2 x 8 GB 3200

Intel Core i7-9700K @ 3.6 GHz

Zotac Gaming NVidia Geforce RTX 2070 8GB

1 TB NVMe SSD

1 TB HDD

ASRock Z390 Pro4

I had to return the PC the day after I got it because the fan went haywire for some odd reason when Windows decided to go into sleep mode, I woke it up and the fans just started spinning crazy fast and then just stopped working so I returned it and got a replacement PC. The replacement PC has a 650 W Gold Plus power supply instead of the 600 W but I'm not complaining just mentioning. This is a pre-built gaming desktop bought from Microcenter around 2019. It's a PowerSpec 353. Except I changed out the original 250 GB SSD for the 1 TB around the first few months I got the PC.


I don't know if any of that information is useful but thought I would share just in case.

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So the problem is after I went into The Sims 3 game files to change the Sim texture sizes from 2048 to 4096, my game played fine except now that every time I moved the camera far away enough or to switch to a Sim, I would get a low resolution model that hadn't loaded in the textures for around half a second to 10. It's not something common I experience unless I've been playing the game a long time. According to the tutorial I followed, if that happens then to raise the texture memory from 32 MB to 2048. I did that and no improvement. So I thought maybe try 4096 but that did nothing except make what I think was the GPU sound a like jet before the whole computer got restarted in a loop though it did eventually stop.

Step 4 is what I was following though looking at some other tutorials, I notice that it should read 4096, 4096, 512, 128 if changed, whereas I had it as 4096, 2048, 512, 128 if that is incorrect and problematic.

Step 7 is what I was following if Sims don't render well.

Screenshot-834.jpg


Then I tried playing TS3 but it just went into another restart loop and one time it froze the whole computer where I couldn't shut down properly. That was fixed, I think, after deleting a file in TS3 folder that supposedly gets replaced every time you start up the game. It was the device config text document. I also tried playing Plants vs Zombies and House Flipper and both also caused a restart loop. For those two games I was monitoring the real-time CPU/GPU stats and it doesn't seem to be temperature related. I also clean out the PC often enough where dust doesn't heavily collect.

House-Flipper.jpg


I tried out a stress test for the CPU and GPU but those test never started the restart loop but I'm not sure if that was just a fluke or not. I used Cinebench, Heaven and Valley. A day after those tests I tried playing Resident Evil 4 and it did not have a restart loop but the game was unusually lagging initially. But maybe that was because of the real-time hook to displaying the stats, I don't know. (Or it could of been when I went into NVidia Experience and for some odd reason sometimes my settings change and I wasn't aware of it.)Then I played House Flipper again for a bit and that also went well. However this issue isn't resolved as it comes and goes randomly. If I'm watching YouTube, restart but not a loop. If I start up my computer after shut down, No Signal but eventually, so far, will display.

I suspect this issue to get worse over time.

So does anyone know what I did wrong, if it is user error, what happened for the computer to behave that way, how do I figure out what is the issue and can it be fixed?
 

Deshong

Distinguished
May 11, 2013
39
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18,530
I checked to make sure everything is plugged in. I think all drivers are up-to-date and installed. I checked the BIOS and the XMP profile is on.

Most games are on the SSD but I know now it's easy to move games from the HDD (D: Drive) in Steam to the SSD (C: Drive) for the ones I installed on the D drive that may benefit more such as The Dark Pictures Anthology series. The other games I think are okay to stay like Plants vs Zombies, To the Moon, games like that.

I got a power supply tester to test the power supply and that actually was fine. A little bit under voltage but within range I think. Instead of 12 volts it was 11.6. I haven't accurately been able to test the GPU or CPU because I have to cut the ties holding the cables together to be able to have more length to fit everything where it needs to go. I'll wait until I get computer cable ties to keep it tidy.

So far I played RE4 and TS3 yesterday and it didn't restart though sometimes it won't and while I'm not gaming will sometimes randomly restart if I had been gaming previously. But it did not do that yesterday. And sometimes I get the No Signal during start up but it does always display after a brief couple of seconds or at least for now anyway.

Maybe I should mention there are random times the power just goes out and maybe that did something. I'm not even sure if the computer is plugged into a power surge protector but I'll be getting one just in case.