- May 28, 2016
- 5
- 0
- 4,520
To start off with, this my PC:
I have been having difficulty with the computer shutting off, then booting back up on its own for a few months. As I start to recall the symptoms, it seemed to start when my wife was playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. She would launch the game, the Bioware splash screen would come up and the computer would power off/restart. After updating the drivers via Nvidia Geforce Experience and using that to optimize the game settings, the problem seemed to go away. For a bit, anyway.
When it came back, I started having semi-reproducible issues in Fallout 4 (after 200-300 hours of gameplay with no issues). Every once in a while, during the lockpicking mini-game, when I would successfully pick a lock, the machine would restart. It started becoming more frequent and then started occurring outside of that minigame; it would sometimes occur during the load screen while fast traveling, when exiting an inventory of some sort (character's inventory or container inventories), and then after examining items (reading a note and then exiting out, for example). While trying to figure out what's causing this, my son told me that he has encountered this issue with Cities Skylines, while launching the game or loading a save. This does not occur outside of gaming; normal usage (web surfing, email, Word docs for homework, etc..) does not trigger the problem.
There are never any error messages. I've checked the Event Log and the only critical alerts I can seem to find show up after the restart and simply indicates Windows wasn't shut down properly. The source on this message is Kernel-Power, Event ID 41 and Task 63. I've checked both the minidump folder and livekernelreport folder, but neither of those contain anything. I've run full scans with Avast and Malwarebytes and found nothing. I ran a Windows memory diagnostic and it came back without error. I've installed MSI Afterburner to monitor temps and nothing has been out of the ordinary there: while playing the game, the hottest the GPU got was around 75c (when it restarted, GPU temp was 60c) and all CPU cores were in the mid 40s. CPU and GPU all sit in the mid 30s at idle. I installed OCCT and stress tested the CPU, GPU and PSU for 30 min each. CPU test was Linpack with 25% memory. GPU test was DX11, fullscreen, sc3. PSU test was at the defaults. All 3 ran fine with no restarts. I also tried the CPU and PSU tests at 1 hour with the same settings and upped the memory on the CPU to 90% and those also ran without causing a restart.
I've run chkdsk on both the SSD and HDD. When I originally built the machine, I had 8GB RAM (1 8GB stick) and suggestions on another forum indicated just having one stick on a dual channel motherboard, might be causing the issue. I ordered a new stick and first tried simply swapping them in the event that there was a memory issue that the diagnostics did not catch, but the problem persisted. I added both sticks in to increase the RAM to 16 GB (now knowing the original stick was good and since it was something I'd been planning anyway) and the problem persisted. I even tried reseating the GPU and the cables into it just in case it was some how not making a good connection, but I'm still having the problem.
I'm at the limits of my knowledge at this point and the issue is seriously frustrating. I'd appreciate any help in solving this, as it's made gaming on this computer (its primary purpose) nearly impossible.
OS: Windows 8.1
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB XLR8 Video Card
Case: Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
I have been having difficulty with the computer shutting off, then booting back up on its own for a few months. As I start to recall the symptoms, it seemed to start when my wife was playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. She would launch the game, the Bioware splash screen would come up and the computer would power off/restart. After updating the drivers via Nvidia Geforce Experience and using that to optimize the game settings, the problem seemed to go away. For a bit, anyway.
When it came back, I started having semi-reproducible issues in Fallout 4 (after 200-300 hours of gameplay with no issues). Every once in a while, during the lockpicking mini-game, when I would successfully pick a lock, the machine would restart. It started becoming more frequent and then started occurring outside of that minigame; it would sometimes occur during the load screen while fast traveling, when exiting an inventory of some sort (character's inventory or container inventories), and then after examining items (reading a note and then exiting out, for example). While trying to figure out what's causing this, my son told me that he has encountered this issue with Cities Skylines, while launching the game or loading a save. This does not occur outside of gaming; normal usage (web surfing, email, Word docs for homework, etc..) does not trigger the problem.
There are never any error messages. I've checked the Event Log and the only critical alerts I can seem to find show up after the restart and simply indicates Windows wasn't shut down properly. The source on this message is Kernel-Power, Event ID 41 and Task 63. I've checked both the minidump folder and livekernelreport folder, but neither of those contain anything. I've run full scans with Avast and Malwarebytes and found nothing. I ran a Windows memory diagnostic and it came back without error. I've installed MSI Afterburner to monitor temps and nothing has been out of the ordinary there: while playing the game, the hottest the GPU got was around 75c (when it restarted, GPU temp was 60c) and all CPU cores were in the mid 40s. CPU and GPU all sit in the mid 30s at idle. I installed OCCT and stress tested the CPU, GPU and PSU for 30 min each. CPU test was Linpack with 25% memory. GPU test was DX11, fullscreen, sc3. PSU test was at the defaults. All 3 ran fine with no restarts. I also tried the CPU and PSU tests at 1 hour with the same settings and upped the memory on the CPU to 90% and those also ran without causing a restart.
I've run chkdsk on both the SSD and HDD. When I originally built the machine, I had 8GB RAM (1 8GB stick) and suggestions on another forum indicated just having one stick on a dual channel motherboard, might be causing the issue. I ordered a new stick and first tried simply swapping them in the event that there was a memory issue that the diagnostics did not catch, but the problem persisted. I added both sticks in to increase the RAM to 16 GB (now knowing the original stick was good and since it was something I'd been planning anyway) and the problem persisted. I even tried reseating the GPU and the cables into it just in case it was some how not making a good connection, but I'm still having the problem.
I'm at the limits of my knowledge at this point and the issue is seriously frustrating. I'd appreciate any help in solving this, as it's made gaming on this computer (its primary purpose) nearly impossible.
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