[SOLVED] Does force reset damage PC components?

[Ishit Arya]

I had to force reset (Holding power button to restart) my PC 3-4 times because I messed up my boot order after installing windows. I'm worried that it somehow damaged my PC components, especially GPU. I don't care about my hdd corruption or damage because I will soon replace it with ssd.

 

[Ralston18]

For the most part - probably not.

The hardware is designed to allow doing so and it is not the same sort of thing as a light switch where you can rapidly flip power on and off.

If the system simply hung between failed boots all should be well.

Do double check that the PSU is capable of supporting the PC's power requirements based on the installed components.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Your hardware can stand the forced resets but your registry may not.
On one of my pc's I had to do a hard reset and upon restarting I got a message to say 5 registry entries had got corrupted , I was unable to boot far enough to get to the windows repair function and it would not even run long enough to detect I was trying to use a recovery disc , this meant the pc was useless. The only good thing was that the pc was about 10 years old anyway.

SO , by all means try a forced reset but fix any problem you have asap so you don't have to do it.

 

[Karadjgne]

Hard reset by power button is different to sudden power interruption. By using the power button, you use the psu to shutdown, you 'give it permission' so to speak. That's going to let the psu be ready for power off state. That has exactly nothing to do with OS, psu on/off has zero to do with whatever Windows wants or doesn't want.

So using the power button will fully protect your hardware as far as power spikes or any such goes, but won't protect against possible data loss or corruption of registry or any other software concerns.

 

[Ishit Arya]

For the most part - probably not.

The hardware is designed to allow doing so and it is not the same sort of thing as a light switch where you can rapidly flip power on and off.

If the system simply hung between failed boots all should be well.

Do double check that the PSU is capable of supporting the PC's power requirements based on the installed components.

Your hardware can stand the forced resets but your registry may not.
On one of my pc's I had to do a hard reset and upon restarting I got a message to say 5 registry entries had got corrupted , I was unable to boot far enough to get to the windows repair function and it would not even run long enough to detect I was trying to use a recovery disc , this meant the pc was useless. The only good thing was that the pc was about 10 years old anyway.

SO , by all means try a forced reset but fix any problem you have asap so you don't have to do it.

Hard reset by power button is different to sudden power interruption. By using the power button, you use the psu to shutdown, you 'give it permission' so to speak. That's going to let the psu be ready for power off state. That has exactly nothing to do with OS, psu on/off has zero to do with whatever Windows wants or doesn't want.

So using the power button will fully protect your hardware as far as power spikes or any such goes, but won't protect against possible data loss or corruption of registry or any other software concerns.

Thanks for the replies but after doing many different benchmarks I saw my pc dropped few frames, not a lot but 3-4Fps. Is this something to worry about? I removed sata cable of the drive where all my games were stored when I was installing windows and after connecting them back windows took 3-4 mins to recognize the drive.

 

[Ralston18]

There might have been some minor file corruption but, as @Karadjgne mentioned, you essentially gave Windows permission to shutdown so any such problems were likely recoverable and recovered on the next full startup.

Almost the same for the reconnected SATA drive. Windows found a "new" drive and had to go through its own housekeeping actions etc. to incorporate the drive and manage it.

As for 3-4Fps's - I doubt that that would be an issue per se and likely not even noticeable for most game play. There are other possible reasons for the slowing - Windows or some apps may have been doing other things in the background. Or if you were playing online - internet can be and has been slow in many places.

Give any problem some time to ensure that the problem is both continual and consistent. And if the problem, especially some metric's, is not really interfering with system performance/game play then leave it alone.

May disappear with some update or other system change.

 

[Ishit Arya]

There might have been some minor file corruption but, as @Karadjgne mentioned, you essentially gave Windows permission to shutdown so any such problems were likely recoverable and recovered on the next full startup.

Almost the same for the reconnected SATA drive. Windows found a "new" drive and had to go through its own housekeeping actions etc. to incorporate the drive and manage it.

As for 3-4Fps's - I doubt that that would be an issue per se and likely not even noticeable for most game play. There are other possible reasons for the slowing - Windows or some apps may have been doing other things in the background. Or if you were playing online - internet can be and has been slow in many places.

Give any problem some time to ensure that the problem is both continual and consistent. And if the problem, especially some metric's, is not really interfering with system performance/game play then leave it alone.

May disappear with some update or other system change.

Hello thanks for a great and insightful reply! I ran multiple benchmark from 2 games Tomb raider and Deus ex since I ran there benchmark few days before the reinstall but the results weren't random, the fps never went higher or even closer to the fps before windows install. At this point I have no idea what caused my fps to drop. I might just do a complete wipe (formatting both boot and secondary drive). I'm starting to regret reinstalling windows.

 

[Ralston18]

You are welcome.

Just hold on the complete wipe etc..

Doing a complete wipe may not make a difference; aka improve FPS.

Work with Resource Monitor and Task Manager to observe system performance.

(Just use one a time.)

Learn what is running on your system and what resources are being used.

You may discover some background app or process that is consuming resources.

Then that can be specifically addressed versus a generic solution such as a wipe.

 

[Ishit Arya]

You are welcome.

Just hold on the complete wipe etc..

Doing a complete wipe may not make a difference; aka improve FPS.

Work with Resource Monitor and Task Manager to observe system performance.

(Just use one a time.)

Learn what is running on your system and what resources are being used.

You may discover some background app or process that is consuming resources.

Then that can be specifically addressed versus a generic solution such as a wipe.

Thanks those are great idea but I haven't downloaded any extra software. I made backup and list of every installed apps before the reinstall so the installed software are the same. Still i'm glad that my pc hardware weren't damaged because of my mistake, hearing that gave me a slight relief.

 

[Karadjgne]

Is there any possibility that you thought that you got lousy fps when first playing the game and hit a website for tweaks that maybe got reset to defaults with the reinstall?

Did you goto the motherboard website and reinstall the motherboard chipset drivers? Those get stored in Windows/drivers and that folder gets deleted on reinstall. Reliance on Windows generic drivers instead of motherboard chipset specifics, for such things as audio, Lan, USB family, Sata, pcie etc can affect fps in a bad way. It's like using a regular pair of tennis shoes to play rugby, tennis, run track, play basketball etc. They'll work, but not nearly as well as the correct shoes (drivers).

 

[Ishit Arya]

Is there any possibility that you thought that you got lousy fps when first playing the game and hit a website for tweaks that maybe got reset to defaults with the reinstall?

Did you goto the motherboard website and reinstall the motherboard chipset drivers? Those get stored in Windows/drivers and that folder gets deleted on reinstall. Reliance on Windows generic drivers instead of motherboard chipset specifics, for such things as audio, Lan, USB family, Sata, pcie etc can affect fps in a bad way. It's like using a regular pair of tennis shoes to play rugby, tennis, run track, play basketball etc. They'll work, but not nearly as well as the correct shoes (drivers).

Yes i've downloaded amd chipsets driver and all the required drivers off from mobo site. The strange part is that even after reinstalling windows again (I didn't format my external drive just boot drive this time) my performance is still low. Is this actually sign of hardware damage since my fps isn't getting close as it should even after reinstalling windows second time.

 

[Karadjgne]

No. Electronics do not work that way. It's either on or off, there's no middle ground. You are barking up the wrong tree. Changes to fps will be because of software or firmware (programs, settings or drivers etc) not hardware.

I've been tinkering with OC for more years than I can remember, even back when the psu was little thought of as important and what was considered good would now make me shudder in Dread that I ever considered using one, and the sheer amount of forced shutdowns and plug pulling I've done because of messed up bios settings is staggering. Every overclocker has had it happen, whether cpu, gpu or ram. Forced shutdowns are a common occurrence.

Somewhere in your pc is software that's changed because of the reinstall. You wiped out a driver, changed registry paths, reset a setting from optimal to default, something. Could be as little as changing DirectX settings from using DX12 to DX11, or other way around, Antivirus is actively scanning every file in use instead of on hold during gaming, something.

 

[Ishit Arya]

No. Electronics do not work that way. It's either on or off, there's no middle ground. You are barking up the wrong tree. Changes to fps will be because of software or firmware (programs, settings or drivers etc) not hardware.

I've been tinkering with OC for more years than I can remember, even back when the psu was little thought of as important and what was considered good would now make me shudder in Dread that I ever considered using one, and the sheer amount of forced shutdowns and plug pulling I've done because of messed up bios settings is staggering. Every overclocker has had it happen, whether cpu, gpu or ram. Forced shutdowns are a common occurrence.

Somewhere in your pc is software that's changed because of the reinstall. You wiped out a driver, changed registry paths, reset a setting from optimal to default, something. Could be as little as changing DirectX settings from using DX12 to DX11, or other way around, Antivirus is actively scanning every file in use instead of on hold during gaming, something.

It all make sense, I somehow manage to dig up an old Tomb Raider 2013 benchmark and compared my fps, my average fps went from 157.0 to 150.4 which is an upgrade but max fps took a hit and went from 200 to 198 and also min fps had an upgrade as well, it went from 112 to 114.

So it looks like there's no hardware damage and after reading your comment it reassured me even more.

Thanks everyone for helping me out!