[SOLVED] My PC keeps restarting itself while playing games

Nov 6, 2019
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1
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My PC randomly restarts while I play games.

I have been to my local repair shop 4 times and they still don't know what's wrong with it.

Specs:

Intel Core i5-9400F Hexa Core LGA 1151 2.90 GHz CPU
16GB RAM
MSI Z390-A PRO Motherboard
Gigabyte 2080super Graphics card
Corsair CX750M 80 Plus Bronze Semi modular power supply
2x 1 TB HDD
1x 500GB SSD

At first I thought it was over heating but my pc would only be around 30-40 degrees, so I went into the BIOS and put all my fans on full speed, but it was loud and would only lessen the life of them. (It would still restart anyway)

Secondly I had the PSU replaced but with the same model, still restarts

Thirdly I had the Graphics card upgraded from a MSI 2070 Super to a Gigabyte 2080 super, stills restarts

Lastly, I completely reinstalled windows 10 and formatted my SSD, and it still restarts!

I can use my pc for any other purposes for as long as I like but this only happens when playing games.

Any and all ideas/questions are welcome. Thank you in advance
 
Solution
There are two cables coming out of the PSU.
The technician did put a 1070 (not sure what model) into my pc and funnily enough I was playing in front of him for about an hour (normally happens after about 10 mins). It was after that point that we assumed it was the GPU and I upgraded to the 2080 and it started doing it sooner than when my 2070 was in the system.
It happened the first time and it restarted and I loaded up the game again to show him again and it did. Then put in the 1070, nothing. Put in the 2080 happened instantly, tried it again and it happened instantly again.
This is only happening when I physically load into a game world but not while I'm in the main menus.

Hmm.. so you have a 2070 & it crashed. You upgraded...

Mrgr74

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Hi @Patterson1

Needless to say you have all drivers up-to-date? Mobo chipset? What Bios ver. do you have? The odds of you getting 2 bad GPU's are slim so I'd hazard a guess that that's not the issue. How do you have the PSU plugged into your 2080? Single power cable daisy-chained to both molex connectors on the card or a single power cable going to both? If a single, switch it out to a double so both power plugs on the card have their own power cable. What type of RAM do you have? Speed? # of sticks? Have you tried 8GB to see if possibly you have a bad stick? No OC's?

Do you have another system you can check parts in? Maybe borrow a friends PC to see if your hardware works fine in another system?
 
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Nov 6, 2019
5
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You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge of PCs as I had it built for me and I only selected the parts.
I did make sure all my drivers and my BIOS were up to date, which they are.
I'm not sure how are the cables are plugged in because I'm not sure what cables are for what but I'll have a look.
RAM: Kingston HX426C16FB2K2/16 HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB kit) DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM Desktop RAM
 

Mrgr74

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You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge of PCs as I had it built for me and I only selected the parts.
I did make sure all my drivers and my BIOS were up to date, which they are.
I'm not sure how are the cables are plugged in because I'm not sure what cables are for what but I'll have a look.
RAM: Kingston HX426C16FB2K2/16 HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB kit) DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM Desktop RAM

No worries. :) How old is the system itself? Under any type of warranty from the place you bought it from? Are they the ones you took it back to, to have it repaired? Is this issue a recent development or from day 1? As for the power cables, Please open your case, take a pic of the inside so we can see how everything is plugged in. This will also show us how the 2080 is configured power wise. Games are more taxing than just idling at the desktop of checking your emails. If it is not getting enough power, it can cause issues. There are several members here that really know their stuff and will take a peek at the pic and have some insight as to a potential cause.

Rough idea of what I'm saying about power to your 2080. This card has 2 power cables going to it. Does yours? Whats your monitor BTW and how are you connecting to it? Display Port? HDMI?

Here's a basic video of a Gigabyte 2080 Super being installed. This look like your card?
 
Last edited:
Nov 6, 2019
5
1
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Thanks heaps for the reply
I upgraded my old system in August this year after the SSD burnt out.
This has been happening since day one but the only game it doesn’t happen in is Battlefield 4. I have been taking back to the store that I got it in and have been going there for years and never had any issues with their products. When I replaced the PSU (above) it was covered by the warranty so I was just given a replacement of the exact same model.

I have two monitors, my main one is connected with DP and my second is HDMI (But I barely use the second one so it's never on)

Today I asked the guy working there if I could set it up in the store and he agreed because he wanted to see it for himself. It happened again on 4 occasions and we spend 5 hours of the day updating, rebooting and trying different things (updating the BIOS, drivers, reinstalling windows 10 and upgrading from the 2070 to the 2080 to name a few) still no success.

My graphics card now is a Gigabyte RTX 2080 SUPER WINDFORCE OC 8G Graphics card

My monitor is a Acer EB321HQU 31.5" 2K IPS LED Monitor



I’ve uploaded some images that may shed some light on the current situation. If they’re not the best angle let me know what I can do to make it easier for you to see what you're looking for:

https://ibb.co/hyjj0P7
https://ibb.co/XZQPQN0
 
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Mrgr74

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Really odd you are having these problems on a fairly new system especially since a shop built it AND you've brought it back so many times for them to tinker with. I can understand if the initial build was done incorrectly by mistake, but over the course of you bringing it in, the odds are any such mistakes would have been addressed, either found & purposely or even inadvertently. It's VERY good that it acted up in front of the tech tho. If for no other reasons than for warranty purposes.

At this point, do you have any friends that have a similar PC tech wise you can borrow parts from to test? Did the shop install other parts to test? You haven't overclocked anything correct?

Did it keep acting up while on the techs bench or just the once? I wonder if there's a short somewhere... The links you posted are blocked by my works firewall so I'll have to wait until I'm off to look at them. Another member should be along shortly tho who'll look at them and continue helping you.

Can you answer tho if there were 2 separate power cables going to your 2080 or just 1 daisy-chained?
 
Nov 6, 2019
5
1
15
There are two cables coming out of the PSU.
The technician did put a 1070 (not sure what model) into my pc and funnily enough I was playing in front of him for about an hour (normally happens after about 10 mins). It was after that point that we assumed it was the GPU and I upgraded to the 2080 and it started doing it sooner than when my 2070 was in the system.

It happened the first time and it restarted and I loaded up the game again to show him again and it did. Then put in the 1070, nothing. Put in the 2080 happened instantly, tried it again and it happened instantly again.
This is only happening when I physically load into a game world but not while I'm in the main menus.

I don't know anyone else to borrow parts off unfortunately.

Haven't done any over-clocking all setting are default factory settings

Sorry about the images I wasn't sure how to upload them to the forum so I had to use a website :/

Let me know if I missed anything
 

Mrgr74

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There are two cables coming out of the PSU.
The technician did put a 1070 (not sure what model) into my pc and funnily enough I was playing in front of him for about an hour (normally happens after about 10 mins). It was after that point that we assumed it was the GPU and I upgraded to the 2080 and it started doing it sooner than when my 2070 was in the system.
It happened the first time and it restarted and I loaded up the game again to show him again and it did. Then put in the 1070, nothing. Put in the 2080 happened instantly, tried it again and it happened instantly again.
This is only happening when I physically load into a game world but not while I'm in the main menus.

Hmm.. so you have a 2070 & it crashed. You upgraded to a 2080 and it still crashed. The tech put in a 1070 and it ran Fine? Your MSI Z390-A PRO got good overall reviews. I know a great deal of people have RTX cards and they run fine, but there ARE a ton of people that seem to be having similar issues to what you're having. Is it possible you got 2 bad RTX cards in a row?

I'm sure others here will disagree with me, but at this point, I'd personally return the 2080 and get a "lesser" card. A 1660Ti, Radeon 7 or RX 5700 XT for example.

Maybe 3rd times the charm and return the 2080 for another 2080, EVGA or Sapphire if they have one.
 
Solution
Nov 6, 2019
5
1
15
You got the story alright.

I will be going back tomorrow for the 5th time and I will mention what you've told me.
Maybe some other people may reply also after looking at the images.

I'll give you an update when I have one, thanks a lot for your help and hopefully when you hear from me again I'll have some good news!
 
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King_V

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I wonder also if the PSU may be defective or questionable, even if new. The 2070 Super and 2080 Super both draw more power than the 1070.
  • 1070 - 150W
  • 2070 Super - 215W
  • 2080 Super - 250W
Now, a 750 watt PSU should be more than enough to handle any of that. Corsair's CXm power supplies (2017 and later, non-orange label) are decent, but not the greatest. But I wonder if your specific power supply just happens to be defective, albeit in an intermittent way and only above a certain level of power demand, and would be curious to see if putting in a different PSU resolves the issue.


EDIT: in addition to the orange label ones being bad:
The CX and CXm units are ok as a budget option, but I do not recommend pairing them with gaming cards. The newer 2017 models of CX and CXm are better than the older ones, but still not what we'd call terrific. Even so, in a real financial pinch, or if there are simply no other good models available to you, then the GRAY label Corsair CX and CXM units are passable. You would be wise to avoid the GREEN label models.

Aside from that, any of the TX, RM, RMx, RMi, HX, HXi, AX or AXi units are good. Those are listed from good to best, with the best of these Corsair models being the AX and AXi units.
 

Mrgr74

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I wonder also if the PSU may be defective or questionable, even if new. The 2070 Super and 2080 Super both draw more power than the 1070.
  • 1070 - 150W
  • 2070 Super - 215W
  • 2080 Super - 250W
Now, a 750 watt PSU should be more than enough to handle any of that. Corsair's CXm power supplies (2017 and later, non-orange label) are decent, but not the greatest. But I wonder if your specific power supply just happens to be defective, albeit in an intermittent way and only above a certain level of power demand, and would be curious to see if putting in a different PSU resolves the issue.

@Patterson1,

@King_V suggestion I highlighted in red above is a great idea. When you take the system in again tomorrow, have them try a different PSU. One of the higher quality ones he mentions above if possible, but a different PSU regardless.

Looking forward to hearing how things go when you get back with your PC! 👍
 
One thing of note about your first pic: the "+2" connector on the 6+2 cable going to the GPU is not fully seated. This is a common occurrence and is easily overlooked. There's a little tab there on the 2 pin connector that should be underneath the 6 pin connector so it's held down, but it looks to be above it instead. I don't really think this is the heart of your problem since you've had other GPUs swapped in and the problem was still there, but then again maybe the tech is making the same mistake repeatedly and the connector should be properly seated anyway.

I feel your pain here. I have had restarts for a long time now and am still investigating. I have tried just about everything, and nothing worked. I am now currently exploring the possibility that it was getting too hot inside my case. I noticed you only have a single case exhaust fan with a rather high powered GPU installed. You might have a temperature problem, too. Do you know what your idle/load temps are?
 
So, I found a repeatable situation that caused my PC to restart every. single. time. This is very strange, but here's my situation. It is:

Controller Companion + Discord + Tomb Raider 2013 = Instant Restarts

It ALWAYS happened at exactly the same time. I would run Tomb Raider, start a new game, and exactly 1min 56sec into the cinematic intro the PC would restart. If I exited either Controller Companion or Discord before starting the game it would run ok. I didn't want to stop using either Controller Companion or Discord, but I found a solution. It's in this thread:


It wasn't the only game that was restarting on me. I had it happen several times in Far Cry 5, too. Again, it was in a very specific spot in the game - whenever I went to that location the PC would instantly restart. I'm hoping it was the same problem with both games and that the above solution has finally fixed it for me. Maybe it will help you, too. Keep us posted.
 

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