I know next to nothing about computer hardware and I'm in need of some advice. I've looked around on the forums here, as well as elsewhere on the interwebs, and I'm thinking that my PSU is dying.
The Problem: My computer shuts down when gaming, and when coming out of sleep mode. It happens when coming out of sleep mode about 75% of the time; I'll see the log-in screen and then it will shut down with no error message. When gaming it shuts down either when the graphics are demanding or immediately after the game has loaded. When playing Skyrim I can get into the game and play for a few minutes, but it gets to a certain part them shuts down. There's no loss of frame rate up to that point. There's no error messages. The only error logged in the event viewer is improper shut down. It seems to be degenerative. It's been going on for about a year; I used to be able to play TF2 but now it generally crashes when the gates open.
My System: My computer is about 6 years old, built for my by a friend. Everything is original, with the exception of the graphics card, which is a little less than 2 years old. The problem started occurring a little less than a year after I put in the new graphics card. I'm running Windows 7.
COOLMAX CXI-600B 600W ATX12V ATX 12V v2.2 SLI Certified / CrossFire Ready and Compatible with Core i3/i5/i7 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor ADO4600DOBOX
LG 20X DVD±R Super Multi DVD Burner Black ATAPI / E-IDE Model GSA-H55NK - OEM
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX
EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
What I've Tried: I've tried a few things based on what I've seen in the forums. I've run Core Temp and GPU temp. With demanding games it doesn't run long enough to get the temp up. I ran Torchlight II, which seems to be close to my systems threshold for graphics, for about 30 minutes. The CPU core temps peak at 53 and 58, and my GPU stays around 64, peaking at 65. I've tried a couple benchmark programs, which caused immediate shut down. I cleaned the dust out of the case; very thoroughly for the PSU. I've tried yelling obscenities at it, which had no discernible effect.
It looks like a PSU problem to me, but I don't have much experience dealing with hardware, and I'd like to have the opinion of someone who does before shell out some some cash to fix it. If anyone can give me some advice on what replacement part to get to get as well, it would also be greatly appreciated. I'm looking to spend about $100, maybe a bit more if it means getting a more stable system. I've got accounts with Newegg and Amazon. Thanks in advance. I apologize if I'm being unnecessarily thorough; I don't really know what's relevant.
The Problem: My computer shuts down when gaming, and when coming out of sleep mode. It happens when coming out of sleep mode about 75% of the time; I'll see the log-in screen and then it will shut down with no error message. When gaming it shuts down either when the graphics are demanding or immediately after the game has loaded. When playing Skyrim I can get into the game and play for a few minutes, but it gets to a certain part them shuts down. There's no loss of frame rate up to that point. There's no error messages. The only error logged in the event viewer is improper shut down. It seems to be degenerative. It's been going on for about a year; I used to be able to play TF2 but now it generally crashes when the gates open.
My System: My computer is about 6 years old, built for my by a friend. Everything is original, with the exception of the graphics card, which is a little less than 2 years old. The problem started occurring a little less than a year after I put in the new graphics card. I'm running Windows 7.
COOLMAX CXI-600B 600W ATX12V ATX 12V v2.2 SLI Certified / CrossFire Ready and Compatible with Core i3/i5/i7 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor ADO4600DOBOX
LG 20X DVD±R Super Multi DVD Burner Black ATAPI / E-IDE Model GSA-H55NK - OEM
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX
EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
What I've Tried: I've tried a few things based on what I've seen in the forums. I've run Core Temp and GPU temp. With demanding games it doesn't run long enough to get the temp up. I ran Torchlight II, which seems to be close to my systems threshold for graphics, for about 30 minutes. The CPU core temps peak at 53 and 58, and my GPU stays around 64, peaking at 65. I've tried a couple benchmark programs, which caused immediate shut down. I cleaned the dust out of the case; very thoroughly for the PSU. I've tried yelling obscenities at it, which had no discernible effect.
It looks like a PSU problem to me, but I don't have much experience dealing with hardware, and I'd like to have the opinion of someone who does before shell out some some cash to fix it. If anyone can give me some advice on what replacement part to get to get as well, it would also be greatly appreciated. I'm looking to spend about $100, maybe a bit more if it means getting a more stable system. I've got accounts with Newegg and Amazon. Thanks in advance. I apologize if I'm being unnecessarily thorough; I don't really know what's relevant.
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