Specs:
Operating System
Windows 10 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 6600K @ 3.50GHz
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
MSI Z170A SLI PLUS (MS-7998) (U3E1)
Graphics
8192MB ATI Radeon RX 480 Graphics (MSI)
Power Supply
EVGA 650GQ 80+ Gold
I just recently updated to Win 10 after holding out for years and ever since I've been having a problem when gaming where I will suddenly lose signal to the monitor and it won't recover until I manually power down the system and turn it back on. It doesn't appear to hard-freeze, at least not initially, because the lights on the keyboard for caps/num lock still turn on and off and I can still hear audio from the game and anything else I am listening to. After 30 seconds to a minute or so the computer does seem to freeze or crash completely. I figure this is either caused by my PSU or GPU, but not sure which.
My temps seem ok. My CPU is only around 30-40c and my GPU idles at around 50 and climbs up to around 75 under load so I don't think it's overheating. I never get any BSOD crash dumps, and event viewer only lists the unexpected manual shutdown as critical. I notice a pattern that rendering heavy dust or smoke effects in particular in these games seems to trigger the problem I'll list some examples of video (not mine) of things in-game that trigger the issue 100% of the time with timestamps. These are M rated games, so be warned of violence/language:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2kN94aFMcA&t=3m43s
3:43
28:28
59:05
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRI4eKg9O8k&t=25m13s
25:13
Terminator Resistance is a relatively new an unoptimized game that doesn't run exceedingly well for me (can only get around a stable 30fps) so if it were the only game causing problems for me I'd maybe just chalk it up to some quirk between my hardware and that game, but I also get this issue during this particular cutscene of collapsing rocks plays in Call of Juarez: Bond in Blood, which is a 13 year old game and two (gaming) generations behind Terminator, and my PC should (and does except for this one instance) run it lightning fast
View: https://youtu.be/4c2zeZRvE7k?t=7400
2:03:22
I've also noticed the freeze/crash occasionally happens when there is a large on-screen explosion in various games like Sniper Elite 3 and Mad Max, which are also games I can otherwise run smoothly at 60fps with no problems. I can run the AMD radeon software stress test with no problems, but I also tried running furmark as a stress test and it IMMEDIATELY causes the problem as soon as I start the test. I also tried undervolting the GPU a little, didn't seem to help.
Possibly related: Ever since I build this PC around 2016 or so, I've also had an intermittent problem where the PC will hard freeze for seemingly no reason when idling or under low workload and never when playing a taxing game or anything like that. When this happens, I don't lose the video signal unless I turn the monitor off and on again, and once again no crash dump/relevant event viewer info. Switching OS from 7 to a fresh install of 10 didn't fix this problem so it must be hardware related. It only happens around once every few weeks or so, so it's something I've just tolerated all these years but I figure it could be related to my new problem.
I don't think the switch to Win 10 necessarily caused the problem even though that's when the issue started. (I also tried using older AMD drivers before they dropped support for 7 to see if that would fix the problem just because those were the ones I had been using before, it didn't.) What I'm wondering is if my GPU is just starting to die or my PSU isn't working correctly and causing things to crash/freeze. Unfortunately I don't have access to a spare PSU or GPU to test without paying for one so I'd just like some extra opinions before I start spending hundreds of dollars on replacement parts. Thank you for any help and advice.
Operating System
Windows 10 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 6600K @ 3.50GHz
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @ 1066MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
MSI Z170A SLI PLUS (MS-7998) (U3E1)
Graphics
8192MB ATI Radeon RX 480 Graphics (MSI)
Power Supply
EVGA 650GQ 80+ Gold
I just recently updated to Win 10 after holding out for years and ever since I've been having a problem when gaming where I will suddenly lose signal to the monitor and it won't recover until I manually power down the system and turn it back on. It doesn't appear to hard-freeze, at least not initially, because the lights on the keyboard for caps/num lock still turn on and off and I can still hear audio from the game and anything else I am listening to. After 30 seconds to a minute or so the computer does seem to freeze or crash completely. I figure this is either caused by my PSU or GPU, but not sure which.
My temps seem ok. My CPU is only around 30-40c and my GPU idles at around 50 and climbs up to around 75 under load so I don't think it's overheating. I never get any BSOD crash dumps, and event viewer only lists the unexpected manual shutdown as critical. I notice a pattern that rendering heavy dust or smoke effects in particular in these games seems to trigger the problem I'll list some examples of video (not mine) of things in-game that trigger the issue 100% of the time with timestamps. These are M rated games, so be warned of violence/language:
3:43
28:28
59:05
25:13
Terminator Resistance is a relatively new an unoptimized game that doesn't run exceedingly well for me (can only get around a stable 30fps) so if it were the only game causing problems for me I'd maybe just chalk it up to some quirk between my hardware and that game, but I also get this issue during this particular cutscene of collapsing rocks plays in Call of Juarez: Bond in Blood, which is a 13 year old game and two (gaming) generations behind Terminator, and my PC should (and does except for this one instance) run it lightning fast
2:03:22
I've also noticed the freeze/crash occasionally happens when there is a large on-screen explosion in various games like Sniper Elite 3 and Mad Max, which are also games I can otherwise run smoothly at 60fps with no problems. I can run the AMD radeon software stress test with no problems, but I also tried running furmark as a stress test and it IMMEDIATELY causes the problem as soon as I start the test. I also tried undervolting the GPU a little, didn't seem to help.
Possibly related: Ever since I build this PC around 2016 or so, I've also had an intermittent problem where the PC will hard freeze for seemingly no reason when idling or under low workload and never when playing a taxing game or anything like that. When this happens, I don't lose the video signal unless I turn the monitor off and on again, and once again no crash dump/relevant event viewer info. Switching OS from 7 to a fresh install of 10 didn't fix this problem so it must be hardware related. It only happens around once every few weeks or so, so it's something I've just tolerated all these years but I figure it could be related to my new problem.
I don't think the switch to Win 10 necessarily caused the problem even though that's when the issue started. (I also tried using older AMD drivers before they dropped support for 7 to see if that would fix the problem just because those were the ones I had been using before, it didn't.) What I'm wondering is if my GPU is just starting to die or my PSU isn't working correctly and causing things to crash/freeze. Unfortunately I don't have access to a spare PSU or GPU to test without paying for one so I'd just like some extra opinions before I start spending hundreds of dollars on replacement parts. Thank you for any help and advice.
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