[SOLVED] Computer has been rebooting randomly while playing games.

[twiggley]

Hi Everyone. Sorry in advance for the massive wall of text. Here are my computer specs to start:

OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
CPU: Intel i5-9600K 3.70GHz
GPU: Geforce RTX 2070-Super (MSI)
Mobo: ASUS Prime B360M-A
PSU: Corsair RM650x
RAM: 16GB of Crucial Ballistix (Also another 16GB of the same but possibly faulty)
STORAGE: 953GB Inland PCIe NVME-SSD (OS Installed here)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 HDD
931GB Crucial CT1000MX500SSD1 SSD

This has been an issue I've been dealing with for probably a year now. Basically while playing certain games (Sea of Thieves, Escape From Tarkov, Master Chief Collection, Paint the Town Red, Nickelodeon All Star Brawl) My PC will completely reboot. A few things to note is that specifically with Escape from Tarkov, this issue had never happened until I had migrated my OS from my HDD to my SSD, and after a recent update for All Star Brawl, my computer will shut off incredibly quickly which never happened before. Here's what I have done so far to try and solve this issue:

• I've replaced my PSU, GPU, and CPU Cooler from a fan to an AIO, and non of those seems to have solved the issue.
• I've checked to make sure that my PSU fan is actually spinning which it is.
• I've benchmarked my GPU and CPU using Furmark and Prime95 and haven't had any issues.
• I've monitored the temperatures of my system up to when my PC reboots and nothing reaching any levels above normal.
• I've updated the BIOs on my motherboard and have updated all my drivers.
• I've wiped my GPU driver and reinstalled it.
• I've used CCleaner to get rid of any gunk that may be in my files.
• I've done anti-virus checks and each one has come up clean.
• And recently I replaced my RAM with new sticks.

I've found a way to make it happen fairly consistently to run tests to figure it out but haven't found a surefire solution yet. Basically, I run Paint the Town Red and have a YouTube video playing on my second monitor. Doing so will cause my PC to Reboot between 10-20 minutes depending on the which slots the RAM sticks are in. With the RAM, I noticed an issue where slots 1 and 3 are fine with the new sticks, but slots 2 and 4 with the new sticks result in a reboot. Also, using a single old stick of RAM in slot 1 will run just fine with no reboots. Event Viewer shows a critical error Kernel-power 41 with no BugcheckCode and no PowerButtonTimestamp which I know is a sign of power supply failure, but I just replaced it with a new one that is probably overpowered for my setup, so unless its faulty I don't think its that. The only things I can think of that are causing this are:

• Something is wrong with my motherboard.
• Something is wrong with my PSU.
• or Something outside of the computer is causing an issue, like the surge protector causing a mini brown-out or something (I'm grasping at straws here).

If anybody has any insight on what the cause of this may be, I will be FOREVER grateful. Its really tiring to be playing a game with some buddies only for the entire computer to shut-off randomly.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi Everyone. Sorry in advance for the massive wall of text. Here are my computer specs to start:

OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
CPU: Intel i5-9600K 3.70GHz
GPU: Geforce RTX 2070-Super (MSI)
Mobo: ASUS Prime B360M-A
PSU: Corsair RM650x
RAM: 16GB of Crucial Ballistix (Also another 16GB of the same but possibly faulty)
STORAGE: 953GB Inland PCIe NVME-SSD (OS Installed here)
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 HDD
931GB Crucial CT1000MX500SSD1 SSD

This has been an issue I've been dealing with for probably a year now. Basically while playing certain games (Sea of Thieves, Escape From Tarkov, Master Chief Collection, Paint the Town Red, Nickelodeon All Star Brawl) My PC will completely reboot. A few things to note is that specifically with Escape from Tarkov, this issue had never happened until I had migrated my OS from my HDD to my SSD, and after a recent update for All Star Brawl, my computer will shut off incredibly quickly which never happened before. Here's what I have done so far to try and solve this issue:

• I've replaced my PSU, GPU, and CPU Cooler from a fan to an AIO, and non of those seems to have solved the issue.
• I've checked to make sure that my PSU fan is actually spinning which it is.
• I've benchmarked my GPU and CPU using Furmark and Prime95 and haven't had any issues.
• I've monitored the temperatures of my system up to when my PC reboots and nothing reaching any levels above normal.
• I've updated the BIOs on my motherboard and have updated all my drivers.
• I've wiped my GPU driver and reinstalled it.
• I've used CCleaner to get rid of any gunk that may be in my files.
• I've done anti-virus checks and each one has come up clean.
• And recently I replaced my RAM with new sticks.

I've found a way to make it happen fairly consistently to run tests to figure it out but haven't found a surefire solution yet. Basically, I run Paint the Town Red and have a YouTube video playing on my second monitor. Doing so will cause my PC to Reboot between 10-20 minutes depending on the which slots the RAM sticks are in. With the RAM, I noticed an issue where slots 1 and 3 are fine with the new sticks, but slots 2 and 4 with the new sticks result in a reboot. Also, using a single old stick of RAM in slot 1 will run just fine with no reboots. Event Viewer shows a critical error Kernel-power 41 with no BugcheckCode and no PowerButtonTimestamp which I know is a sign of power supply failure, but I just replaced it with a new one that is probably overpowered for my setup, so unless its faulty I don't think its that. The only things I can think of that are causing this are:

• Something is wrong with my motherboard.
• Something is wrong with my PSU.
• or Something outside of the computer is causing an issue, like the surge protector causing a mini brown-out or something (I'm grasping at straws here).

If anybody has any insight on what the cause of this may be, I will be FOREVER grateful. Its really tiring to be playing a game with some buddies only for the entire computer to shut-off randomly.

If your doing any overclocking set it back to stock.

I'm just guessing you have 4 8GB ram sticks.
Where these sticks bought as 2 kits of 2 sticks each or 4 separate sticks?

 

[twiggley]

If your doing any overclocking set it back to stock.

I'm just guessing you have 4 8GB ram sticks.
Where these sticks bought as 2 kits of 2 sticks each or 4 separate sticks?

No overclocking whatsoever. The RAM came in 16GB kits with 2 sticks each, so yes, 2 kits of 2 sticks. One is RGB which is what I'm currently using.

 

[Bob.B]

No overclocking whatsoever. The RAM came in 16GB kits with 2 sticks each, so yes, 2 kits of 2 sticks. One is RGB which is what I'm currently using.

Work with one kit at a time.
Fit the 2 sticks in the proper slots....a2+b2.
See the manual for a pic.

Put a copy of memtest86 on a flash stick.
Boot it up and let it run a pass.....no errors allowed.

Repeat the test with the other set of ram sticks.

Run this and post a LINK to the results page.
PC Benchmark

 

[twiggley]

Work with one kit at a time.
Fit the 2 sticks in the proper slots....a2+b2.
See the manual for a pic.

Put a copy of memtest86 on a flash stick.
Boot it up and let it run a pass.....no errors allowed.

Repeat the test with the other set of ram sticks.

Run this and post a LINK to the results page.
PC Benchmark

Hey Bob,

Just finished running the memtest 86 tests and all passed with no errors after 4 passes each.

I also ran the PC benchmark you linked above and my results are here.

 

[Bob.B]

Hey Bob,

Just finished running the memtest 86 tests and all passed with no errors after 4 passes each.

I also ran the PC benchmark you linked above and my results are here.

That would seem to say neither kit is flat busted.
UBM is showing the ram is now running at stock speed.
Using just one kit running at stock speed run your games and see if it fails.

 

[twiggley]

That would seem to say neither kit is flat busted.
UBM is showing the ram is now running at stock speed.
Using just one kit running at stock speed run your games and see if it fails.

So i've been running a couple different games and have had no issues up until I decided to use my PC to stream VR games to my oculus. After about 45 minutes my computer shut off while I was in VR. No issues so far with Nick All Stars which was the original problem. Whatever the issue is changes every so often to different games. Could this be an issues with my power supply being to low power for the internals? the RTX 2060S reccommends a minimum 650 watt PSU, so would upgrading to a 750 or even 850 watt PSU do the trick?

 

[Bob.B]

So i've been running a couple different games and have had no issues up until I decided to use my PC to stream VR games to my oculus. After about 45 minutes my computer shut off while I was in VR. No issues so far with Nick All Stars which was the original problem. Whatever the issue is changes every so often to different games. Could this be an issues with my power supply being to low power for the internals? the RTX 2060S reccommends a minimum 650 watt PSU, so would upgrading to a 750 or even 850 watt PSU do the trick?

You may have multiple problems which can get confusing trying to fix.
The 650 psu should be ample that's not to say it does not have a problem.
As a test bypass the ups see what happens.

 

[gamerk316]

Oh boy, these can be fun to track down.

One thing to try, even though it will kill performance in the short term, would be to run with just a single stick of RAM; This is to eliminate any RAM/Slot issues. If you run into a problem, use a different stick in a different slot. Assuming at least one stick/slot is good, this would eliminate RAM as the primary culprit.

The PSU could be a problem; you might be pushing right against what the PSU is capable of outputting, and it's quite possible if you are trying to pull more then it can provide for a period of time it will lead to a spontaneous reboot of the PC. TBH I'd suspect this is the most likely failure cause, as most other fail modes (RAM, etc.) would be expected to generate some STOP code eventually.

 

[twiggley]

That would seem to say neither kit is flat busted.
UBM is showing the ram is now running at stock speed.
Using just one kit running at stock speed run your games and see if it fails.

You may have multiple problems which can get confusing trying to fix.
The 650 psu should be ample that's not to say it does not have a problem.
As a test bypass the ups see what happens.

Would you be able to explain how to do so, or point me in the direction of some resources that do? I’ve never heard of that process before.

 

[RodroX]

So you tried a lot of things, and besides runing everything with 1 stick of RAM for a day or two...... How about a fresh clean installl of Windows 10 + all recent updates and patches + newest drivers?

 

[Bob.B]

Would you be able to explain how to do so, or point me in the direction of some resources that do? I’ve never heard of that process before.

I don't think there is a standard process.
It's a matter of try this....try that.
Things like reseating stuff...giving the innards a cleaning...running some test...updating drivers/bios...making the machine smaller...swapping parts.
Also....never say never.

Looking at the UBM run again are you sure you updated the bios?
How about the chipset and ME?
Did you bypass the UPS for a test run?

 

[twiggley]

Oh boy, these can be fun to track down.

One thing to try, even though it will kill performance in the short term, would be to run with just a single stick of RAM; This is to eliminate any RAM/Slot issues. If you run into a problem, use a different stick in a different slot. Assuming at least one stick/slot is good, this would eliminate RAM as the primary culprit.

The PSU could be a problem; you might be pushing right against what the PSU is capable of outputting, and it's quite possible if you are trying to pull more then it can provide for a period of time it will lead to a spontaneous reboot of the PC. TBH I'd suspect this is the most likely failure cause, as most other fail modes (RAM, etc.) would be expected to generate some STOP code eventually.

Got an update. I ended up buying a brand new Corsiar RM750x PSU from microcenter and installed that. The issue seemed to stop for one game that would crash almost instantly, but just now while I was playing Halo: Master Chief Collection my computer shut down again. I've also done a fresh install of windows and all my drivers are up to date.
I also noticed that the old ram sticks I was using are probably bad, since slotting those in alongside my newer set of sticks wont allow my computer to boot.
With all of that said, and a brand new PSU not fixing the issue, could this be a problem with my motherboard or CPU? Those are the only two things I haven't replaced yet.