- Dec 8, 2016
- 9
- 0
- 4,510
My specs:
Windows 10 Professional
Intel i7 930 CPU
Five DDR3 RAM sticks, three 6 GB and two 8GB
Radeon RX 480 GPU
EVGA 600W 80B PSU
My issue: For a very long time now, I've been experiencing an odd shut down issue. When under sufficient stress, the PC simply shuts down fully without warning. At first I assumed it was an overheating issue, and decided (Foolishly, I know) to open the side of the case and put a box fan next to it. I found that the computer lasted much longer without a shut down, sometimes never doing it at all, when a fan was blowing in. I assumed thus that it was an overheating issue, and thoroughly cleaned my PC more often to be rid of the dust that would build up from the use of a fan. Every now and then it would still shut down without warning, but a dust cleaning seemed to remove the problem once more.
However, lately my box fan broke down, and it seems like no one sells them anymore! So I became curious as to the cause, again. I bought Speccy to see the actual temperatures of my components, and ran my most demanding game. To my great surprise, all of my components were well within the safe heat levels, with the CPU climbing to 'only' 80C and even then only at the greatest, most prolonged stress. Research shows that the CPU has a shut-down range around 100C, and the thing never climbed above 80C. The other components are, likewise, within acceptable ranges for running a high end game, and in fact run cooler than most gamers report their components running with such loads. Speccy does not seem to track the PSU's heat level, so I'm not sure. That's a worry, since, aside from the motherboard and CPU fan, that's the only component in the computer that hadn't been changed out at some point. Even the OS has been upgraded recently.
So, I checked online and used several different PSU calculators, and found that a 450W PSU could handle my power load, and I'd been using a 650W the entire time. With assurances from elsewhere that it wouldn't cause damage, I bought my current, 600W PSU to replace the old one. Confident that the issue was not being caused by not having enough power, I gave the computer one more good dust cleaning, put away the fan, and closed the case for the first in a very long time.
Unfortunately, the problem persists. It's not as bad as it was before: whereas the thing would shut down in a long period of time while doing NOTHING without a fan on it, or in a short period of time while running a game, now it can last fairly long with a high-load game, to the tune of hours, including online play in said high-load game. As a last resort, I ordered a new CPU-mounted fan in order to see if that would fix the problem once and for all. It hasn't been installed yet, but given the information I've gathered I doubt it will stop this issue from happening again. The CPU fan needs to be replaced anyway, but in case it doesn't solve my problem, I'm asking here.
TL;DR: Computer intermittently shuts down, and is not an overheating issue, having too little power, OS failure (unless Windows 10 and Windows 7 have the exact same issue causing this), or bad components (as they've ALL been changed out at some point except for the motherboard, and please god let it not be the motherboard). What could be causing this?
Windows 10 Professional
Intel i7 930 CPU
Five DDR3 RAM sticks, three 6 GB and two 8GB
Radeon RX 480 GPU
EVGA 600W 80B PSU
My issue: For a very long time now, I've been experiencing an odd shut down issue. When under sufficient stress, the PC simply shuts down fully without warning. At first I assumed it was an overheating issue, and decided (Foolishly, I know) to open the side of the case and put a box fan next to it. I found that the computer lasted much longer without a shut down, sometimes never doing it at all, when a fan was blowing in. I assumed thus that it was an overheating issue, and thoroughly cleaned my PC more often to be rid of the dust that would build up from the use of a fan. Every now and then it would still shut down without warning, but a dust cleaning seemed to remove the problem once more.
However, lately my box fan broke down, and it seems like no one sells them anymore! So I became curious as to the cause, again. I bought Speccy to see the actual temperatures of my components, and ran my most demanding game. To my great surprise, all of my components were well within the safe heat levels, with the CPU climbing to 'only' 80C and even then only at the greatest, most prolonged stress. Research shows that the CPU has a shut-down range around 100C, and the thing never climbed above 80C. The other components are, likewise, within acceptable ranges for running a high end game, and in fact run cooler than most gamers report their components running with such loads. Speccy does not seem to track the PSU's heat level, so I'm not sure. That's a worry, since, aside from the motherboard and CPU fan, that's the only component in the computer that hadn't been changed out at some point. Even the OS has been upgraded recently.
So, I checked online and used several different PSU calculators, and found that a 450W PSU could handle my power load, and I'd been using a 650W the entire time. With assurances from elsewhere that it wouldn't cause damage, I bought my current, 600W PSU to replace the old one. Confident that the issue was not being caused by not having enough power, I gave the computer one more good dust cleaning, put away the fan, and closed the case for the first in a very long time.
Unfortunately, the problem persists. It's not as bad as it was before: whereas the thing would shut down in a long period of time while doing NOTHING without a fan on it, or in a short period of time while running a game, now it can last fairly long with a high-load game, to the tune of hours, including online play in said high-load game. As a last resort, I ordered a new CPU-mounted fan in order to see if that would fix the problem once and for all. It hasn't been installed yet, but given the information I've gathered I doubt it will stop this issue from happening again. The CPU fan needs to be replaced anyway, but in case it doesn't solve my problem, I'm asking here.
TL;DR: Computer intermittently shuts down, and is not an overheating issue, having too little power, OS failure (unless Windows 10 and Windows 7 have the exact same issue causing this), or bad components (as they've ALL been changed out at some point except for the motherboard, and please god let it not be the motherboard). What could be causing this?
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