[SOLVED] Is my power supply the problem? Or is it my CPU? PC randomly losing power.

[DomG]

I've done a lot of searching, and nothing has helped so far. So, here's the issue:

Today, while playing some Borderlands 3, my entire PC lost power. At first, I thought it may be that I tripped a fuse, or that there was an outage. However, my monitor and other electronics in the room still had power.

I went to go power my PC back on, but it wouldn't start. The MOBO lights were all off - no power at all to anything in the case. I flipped the PSU switch from ON to OFF, then back to ON again, and my MOBO lights came back on. I rebooted the PC with no issues.

5 minutes later, the PC shuts down again - no blue screen, no warning, just complete loss of power. All MOBO lights and LEDs are gone. Same thing - flip the switch, MOBO lights come back on, turn PC back on.

So now I start troubleshooting - is it heat? Is it the CPU? Is it the PSU? I run some stress tests using IntelBurn on the CPU. Several times the PC lost power again, but at no regular interval. Once it was when the CPU reached 80C, another time it was when it was only at 60C. Twice it happened under 100% load, twice it happened under no load at all.

So now I am at a loss. Is there something I'm missing here? Is my PSU done, is this common for when one dies?


PSU: Corsair AX 1200
CPU: i7 7700
GPU: EVGA 1070
MOBO: Asus Strix B250

 

[Aero_X]

I've done a lot of searching, and nothing has helped so far. So, here's the issue:

Today, while playing some Borderlands 3, my entire PC lost power. At first, I thought it may be that I tripped a fuse, or that there was an outage. However, my monitor and other electronics in the room still had power.

I went to go power my PC back on, but it wouldn't start. The MOBO lights were all off - no power at all to anything in the case. I flipped the PSU switch from ON to OFF, then back to ON again, and my MOBO lights came back on. I rebooted the PC with no issues.

5 minutes later, the PC shuts down again - no blue screen, no warning, just complete loss of power. All MOBO lights and LEDs are gone. Same thing - flip the switch, MOBO lights come back on, turn PC back on.

So now I start troubleshooting - is it heat? Is it the CPU? Is it the PSU? I run some stress tests using IntelBurn on the CPU. Several times the PC lost power again, but at no regular interval. Once it was when the CPU reached 80C, another time it was when it was only at 60C. Twice it happened under 100% load, twice it happened under no load at all.

So now I am at a loss. Is there something I'm missing here? Is my PSU done, is this common for when one dies?


PSU: Corsair AX 1200
CPU: i7 7700
GPU: EVGA 1070
MOBO: Asus Strix B250

Hi,

The way you describe it I would say that power supply is nearly on it's way out. (It's likely falsely kikcing in overload protection which it would do under normal circumstances ) My 1000watt psu went in a very similar way.

I would suggesting replacing it with a Corsair RM750x. I'm currently running one on my setup my specs are

• CPU: Ryzen 7 2700
• GPU: ASUS GTX 1080 (Had 2 x MSI GTX 980 in SLI)
• MOBO: X470 Gaming Pro

 

[Zizo007]

I've done a lot of searching, and nothing has helped so far. So, here's the issue:

Today, while playing some Borderlands 3, my entire PC lost power. At first, I thought it may be that I tripped a fuse, or that there was an outage. However, my monitor and other electronics in the room still had power.

I went to go power my PC back on, but it wouldn't start. The MOBO lights were all off - no power at all to anything in the case. I flipped the PSU switch from ON to OFF, then back to ON again, and my MOBO lights came back on. I rebooted the PC with no issues.

5 minutes later, the PC shuts down again - no blue screen, no warning, just complete loss of power. All MOBO lights and LEDs are gone. Same thing - flip the switch, MOBO lights come back on, turn PC back on.

So now I start troubleshooting - is it heat? Is it the CPU? Is it the PSU? I run some stress tests using IntelBurn on the CPU. Several times the PC lost power again, but at no regular interval. Once it was when the CPU reached 80C, another time it was when it was only at 60C. Twice it happened under 100% load, twice it happened under no load at all.

So now I am at a loss. Is there something I'm missing here? Is my PSU done, is this common for when one dies?


PSU: Corsair AX 1200
CPU: i7 7700
GPU: EVGA 1070
MOBO: Asus Strix B250

Are you overclocking?

 

[ArchitSahu]

Sounds like your PSU is dying. Do you have a spare PSU you can borrow of sufficient wattage and good quality to test that it is indeed your PSU dying? If you want to get a spare PSU, consider these:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Wr...fied-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ssr-650fx

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PV...d-semi-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020132-na

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Kh...ed-semi-modular-atx-power-supply-focus-gm-750

 

[DomG]

Hi,

The way you describe it I would say that power supply is nearly on it's way out. (It's likely falsely kikcing in overload protection which it would do under normal circumstances ) My 1000watt psu went in a very similar way.

I would suggesting replacing it with a Corsair RM750x. I'm currently running one on my setup my specs are

• CPU: Ryzen 7 2700
• GPU: ASUS GTX 1080 (Had 2 x MSI GTX 980 in SLI)
• MOBO: X470 Gaming Pro

I purchased the RM750x. It gets here on Tuesday. Hopefully the PSU is indeed the problem.

Are you overclocking?

No, not overclocking anything.

 

[DomG]

Sounds like your PSU is dying. Do you have a spare PSU you can borrow of sufficient wattage and good quality to test that it is indeed your PSU dying? If you want to get a spare PSU, consider these:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Wr...fied-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ssr-650fx

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PV...d-semi-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020132-na

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Kh...ed-semi-modular-atx-power-supply-focus-gm-750

Nope, no spare, but I did order a new PSU to test it out.

 

[DomG]

UPDATE:

I completely took apart the PSU (despite the multiple warning stickers informing me that my warranty was now void 🤣) - dust EVERYWHERE. The stuff was caked on just about every heatsink, capacitor, fan blade, and wire. I spent a good 20 minutes gutting all of that crap out of the small gaps between components, then put it back into place.

As of now, my PC has been running for 2 hours without a shutdown. Also, I've been stress testing both the CPU and GPU to see if I could get it to shut down again, but it has held strong.


It's possible that that amount of dust became conductive and was shorting out the PSU, or simply caused too much heat. Either way, it's running well. I'll update again after I test it for the rest of the day.

 

[Aero_X]

UPDATE:

I completely took apart the PSU (despite the multiple warning stickers informing me that my warranty was now void 🤣) - dust EVERYWHERE. The stuff was caked on just about every heatsink, capacitor, fan blade, and wire. I spent a good 20 minutes gutting all of that crap out of the small gaps between components, then put it back into place.

As of now, my PC has been running for 2 hours without a shutdown. Also, I've been stress testing both the CPU and GPU to see if I could get it to shut down again, but it has held strong.


It's possible that that amount of dust became conductive and was shorting out the PSU, or simply caused too much heat. Either way, it's running well. I'll update again after I test it for the rest of the day.

Very possible, the dust didn't allow the psu to cool off correctly or the dust was triggering the overload protection.

Hopefully you can cancel your order with Amazon.

 

[DomG]

Final update:

PC ran for 12+ hours of constant use, both gaming and benchmarking while I wasn't gaming - no failures.

Cancelled my Amazon order. So to anyone who is having this problem, check your PSU for big dust buildup.

 

[rickypicky5]

Well done DomG!