[SOLVED] Is my PSU/CPU failing?

[simas300]

So a few days ago Ive noticed that my PC tends to go into sleep mode while I am playing something on it.

Since this seemed like a classic overheating problem, I've checked my temps with HWmonitor/MSI afterburner and learned that my CPU temperature reaches ~65C on older games (metro 2033 redux) and ~75C on new ones (like Monster Hunter World). When on idle CPU temp is around 38-42C.

These temperatures seem to be tolerable for this particular processor(according to the manufacturer), therefore I assumed there's a problem with the thermal paste. Naturally, I cleaned the old one off and replaced it with a new one(Arctic MX-2).

But once I booted up the pc and gave it a trial run the problem persisted. What could I do to fix this?

My specs:
i5-4670k @ 3.4Ghz
RTX 2060
PSU Seasonic S12II-620 620W 80 Plus Bronze
H87M-E33
8GB DDR3 RAM

UPDATE:
All four CPU cooler legs are held in place with these "tweezer-like" mechanisms that go through the holes in the mobo. Back in the day one of these tweezer legs broke (and I was left with 7 of them instead of 8 since each pin has 2 of them). And unfortunately, during the latest cooler installation, I've lost another "tweezer-leg", so now two out of 4 pins only have 1 "tweezer-leg", which means the cooler is a little loose. To combat this I've set the case on its side, to let the gravity work in my favor, but something tells me its just not enough.

Before all of this, I have not used this computer for gaming for quite a while, and after coming back to it (beginning of January) I encountered a similar problem, but only in Monster Hunter World. To combat this I've replaced the thermal paste (that was the first time, now was the second) and everything was okay until I purchased rtx 2060. Then, after a couple days of light gaming, all of this "pleasantness" started. I do hope that I will not need to replace my PSU, seeing how I already have to replace my motherboard, CPU, and RAM in order to combat this dreaded CPU bottleneck.


P.S. On my latest attempt to solve this I've changed the minimum processor state (located in "advanced power settings" section) from 100% to 60%. While it did not solve the problem I was rendered "mouseless" after pc woke up (i.e. neither my cable nor my wireless mouse responded to my commands). This might be unrelated but I thought it was worth mentioning.

UPDATE 2.0

Just ran HWBOT RealBench software and did not encounter "hibernation" issues. This issue grows to be more vexing by the minute.

 

[shknawe]

Try going into advanced power settings sub window and checking/turning off sleep modes or hibernating modes etc.

 

[thx1138v2]

Temperatures look OK. Generally speaking, you should start worrying if they hit 90C and get serious if it hits 100C.

First, check for a BIOS update.

Second, consider the age of the PSU. Swap out with a known good PSU if possible.

Third, consider the age of the mobo and DRAM.

 

[Ralston18]

And look into Reliability History/Manager and Event Viewer.

Very likely that one or the other may be capturing some error code, warning, or even informational event that is logged just before or at the time of "going to sleep".

 

[simas300]

Try going into advanced power settings sub window and checking/turning off sleep modes or hibernating modes etc.

I have high-performance mode selected and the "put the computer to sleep" option is always selected as "never".

Temperatures look OK. Generally speaking, you should start worrying if they hit 90C and get serious if it hits 100C.

First, check for a BIOS update.

Second, consider the age of the PSU. Swap out with a known good PSU if possible.

Third, consider the age of the mobo and DRAM.

PSU, mobo, and DRAM all have 5 years of usage under their belt. Surely that cant be enough for them to go bad?

I'll look for bios update (I imagine it should be located at MSI official website, seeing how they are the manufacturer of this particular motherboard) but something tells me that wont be enough.

And look into Reliability History/Manager and Event Viewer.

Very likely that one or the other may be capturing some error code, warning, or even informational event that is logged just before or at the time of "going to sleep".

Unfortunately, the only results that Reliability History gave me was a "critical event" computer was not properly shut down (which happened a couple of days ago) and a warning about the unsuccessful installation of "MSXML 4.0 SP2 (KB954430)" and " Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 Service Pack 2 for x64-based Systems (KB973688)" updates
".

I have Windows 7 and have not updated them in a while and decided to do so yesterday, seems some updates still haven't gone through. But I want to stress the fact that pc started going into sleep mode before I've done these updates.

To be more specific about the "going to sleep issue" It usually just goes to black, allowing me to hear the sounds for a while, then shows a "no video input" message followed by something like "computer is going to sleep mode". Thing is, at first this only happened while running metro redux so I didn't pay much attention, but now it started happening in games like Monster Hunter World and that peculiar Anthem demo.

 

[simas300]

Temperatures look OK. Generally speaking, you should start worrying if they hit 90C and get serious if it hits 100C.

First, check for a BIOS update.

Second, consider the age of the PSU. Swap out with a known good PSU if possible.

Third, consider the age of the mobo and DRAM.

Upon trying to update BIOS from the flash drive the computer freezes, therefore rendering me (and itself) unable to complete the action.

I have no PSU to swap mine out with.

Just a few days ago I learned I have to replace my CPU because of the bottleneck. And to do so, I have to get a new mobo, since mine is "incompatible with the current cpu's". And of course, my RAM is not "good enough" for the new mobo's, no, I need new ones. Please don't tell me that I have to get a new PSU as well. This was supposed to be just a tiny upgrade, not a completely new, freakin' build.

 

[Ralston18]

Computer "going to sleep" does not necessarily mean a bottleneck.

Who said you needed a new CPU etc.... and why?

 

[simas300]

Yes, this strange occurrence was not the reason why I consider having a bottleneck. That would be the performance itself. Not only do I have significantly lower fps than other individuals with similar builds, but I also started experiencing lag spikes, low GPU usage. Heck, one time I got a whole concert of usb device is connected/disconnected sounds just from booting up a game. So to fix this the only way would be to get a new CPU, therefore, that's where this story started heading

 

[simas300]

While running prime95 my cpu temps reach 99C (however it does not crash/go to sleep mode), and as I have mentioned my CPU cooler is somewhat loose. Could it be the culprit of all this? I'd appreciate if someone could help me fix this asap, because I only have a very small amount of time to set it up.
(Not to mention the whole "upgrading cpu/mobo/ram thing, im sure id set this thing on fire if after investing another ~350eur into it would not work).

 

[Ralston18]

Yes: Fix the CPU cooler.

You need good contact with the CPU to properly and fully cool the CPU. And use good thermal paste.

There is nothing to be gained by leaving such a problem "behind".

As for the USB issues - that could be a physical problem. Some USB connection being loose and cycling back and forth: connecting and disconnecting. Inspect the USB ports and cables. Wiggle and see if you can manually discover any loose connections.

 

[simas300]

Yes: Fix the CPU cooler.

You need good contact with the CPU to properly and fully cool the CPU. And use good thermal paste.

There is nothing to be gained by leaving such a problem "behind".

As for the USB issues - that could be a physical problem. Some USB connection being loose and cycling back and forth: connecting and disconnecting. Inspect the USB ports and cables. Wiggle and see if you can manually discover any loose connections.

See, therein lies the problem. The performance problems led me to believe that I need a new CPU (and mobo+RAM alongside it), so I'm thinking of buying ryzen5 2600 (which comes with a stock cooler). But what if the problem persists once I replace these parts? After all, not only do CPU temps never cross 75C while gaming (or even reach 65C in the blasted metro) they always seem stable. Even during the HWBOT RealBench test.

Its as if CPU is bottlenecking the GPU, ending up doing most of the work and then exhausting itself and turning off the whole system.

Is there perhaps any way to know whether its CPU and not, say, PSU, without replacing the parts?

Because at this point it seems that the whole project is taking more effort and time than its worth.

 

[Ralston18]

Going back a few steps:

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to observe your system's performance and see if there are bottlenecks and if the bottlenecks correspond with the computer going to sleep. May or may not correspond with the CPU per se.

As for PSU you can do some testing:

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

The computer unexpectedly going to sleep is a problem and but is not necessarily a performance issue. I.e., if the computer is not falling asleep and game play is acceptable then CPU is not the problem.

GPU, CPU, bottlenecking:

https://www.wepc.com/tips/cpu-gpu-bottleneck/

Also:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bottleneck-cpu-gpu,5503-11.html

Point being that who knows what will solve the matter (sleeping) when the source of the problem remains unidentified.

 

[simas300]

How can I observe my system's performance with Task Manager/Resource Monitor? I mean, I can't do that while in-game, and once I "alt-tab" out of them the data (such as cpu usage) drops significantly. The going to sleep things occurs somewhat randomly, so, unfortunately, I cannot do it just prior to it, and after the computer wakes up (I have to go through the login screen and retype the password) the temperatures and CPU usage are all significantly lower than they'd be under load. But to reiterate, judging from the fact in most games (monster hunter world, Fallout 4,) the GPU usage doesn't go higher than 80% (roughly 40% in fallout) and considering that i5 4670k is quite dated CPU it seems logical to believe it is, in fact, the cause of this bottleneck.

Correct me If I am wrong. I am curious to know whether this cpu could be bottlenecking my new rtx 2060.

Metro Redux is the first game that showed me this problem (aside from a small problem with monster hunter about a month back, I will get into it shortly). In metro, CPU would almost always stay at 99-100% (especially in stations full of npc's) but in emptier levels, GPU would dominate while CPU usage would drop to about 30-50%.

I mentioned the possibility of cpu cooler being the culprit because during the first days of January I had a similar problem with monster hunter world, which I fixed by changing the thermal paste (at first I put just a small dot, but pc would not but so I had to put more once I reapplied it). But since then, I've changed the past again (which was two days ago). And this time the problem will not go away.


Edit:

I've also seen some errors in the event viewer, perhaps this will help to identify the problem?

Heres the event viewer log, hopefully, its not against the rules to post it here

https://ufile.io/ku6aj

 

[Ralston18]

You can observe while "in game".

Just drag the window to one side and leave open. Naturally that will effect game play but the objective is to identify the problem - not "win" per se.

 

[simas300]

So it turns out I managed to find a solution. While browsing through countless of threads similar to mine, I've come across a peculiar fix from a guy, who himself could not believe that it really was that simple.

Apparently, his case buttons were malfunctioning so he went "system settings" and found the "when I press the sleep button" option. He then changed it from "goes to sleep" to "nothing happens".

I was extremely skeptical of this working, ( not to mention one click away from buying a new PSU at this point) but I tried it out and Voila! Absolute success! Was able to finish 5+ levels of survival metro without ever getting a "power down " event!

Thank you for time and effort Ralston18, your input helped me expand my horizons and find this unusual solution!