Need help with computer suddenly powering off, likely due to overheating CPU (AMD FX 6300)

[hughjanus]

Hi,

TL;DR - PC frequently is experiencing "Total, sudden power off" crashes, I believe is down to CPU (AMD FX 6300) overheating (not sure why?), any help to fix?

I'm getting issues where my PC is crashing/turning off lately, it's been happening for a few months now, but it's at the stage where my PC is literally crashing/turning off almost every time I use it, making it virtually unusable.
It can happened with very minimal usage - such as merely just a web browser/MS Word open, yet STILL that's enough to cause a crash.


The 2 types of crash I get are;

1) Total, sudden power off - PC case & monitor suddenly switch off without warning, like someone's pulled out the plug. (This is what I've been getting a lot recently).

2) PC totally freezes up - screen freezes, mouse won't move, Ctrl+Alt+Del isn't accessible, and it never recovers. So the only thing I can do is a "hard switch off", using the power button on my PC case. (This happened a lot before, but not so much now).


Now I've been doing some testing & monitoring with at first Speccy, and also AMD Overdrive.
To test, I've been trying to render a movie in Hitfilm, yet everytime I try (about 5 times so far) I've experienced the "Total, sudden power off" crash mid way through.

Some some data I got, when monitoring this crash, using AMD Overdrive;
- CPU Cores Thermal Margin - when starting the render, it's around 25C, yet it progressively drops as the render goes through, crashing when it reaches -14C (translating to about 84C in real temperature), which is around 10 mins in.
- "TMPIN0" (I believe this is the Mobo) - stays pretty constantly @ 45C Thermal Margin, so I don't think there's any issues here


Therefore, I feel like it's my CPU overheating that's causing the issue, yet I can't understand why the CPU isn't "dropping to a lower power state" to cool itself down, when it's reaching the higher temperatures?

But unsure of what to do to fix this, since when contacting AMD support, they said the CPU's stock fan is fine to deal with the CPU, and they don't recommend changing it.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance - if you need any more details, please let me know


PC Specs;
Case = Corsair Carbide Series 200R Compact ATX
PSU = Corsair CX500M ATX/EPS - 500W, 80+ Bronze
Motherboard = Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0
CPU = AMD FX6300 Black Edition - 6 Core, 3.5 GHx Clockspeed
RAM = Corsair Vengeance 8 GB CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 - DDR3 RAM
Graphics Card = Asus Nvidia GeForce GT 610 - 2GB DDR3 RAM
Hard Drive = WD Blue 1TB WD10EZEX
OS = Windows 10 Home

 

[madmatt30]

The stock and coolers are fine up to a point.

It should be throttling at around 75c , plainly it isn't though.

Surely the,cpu fan is pushing,massive rpm & will be incredibly noisy at those temps ??

I find it strange that you've made no mention of this .

Is the cpu fan actually running at all ??

 

[hughjanus]

The stock and coolers are fine up to a point.

It should be throttling at around 75c , plainly it isn't though.

Surely the,cpu fan is pushing,massive rpm & will be incredibly noisy at those temps ??

I find it strange that you've made no mention of this .

Is the cpu fan actually running at all ??

Thanks for the response

Regarding the stock & coolers - At what sort of amount do you think they'd start be tested? And how do you know what the "better" coolers are, do they have benchmarks?

About throttling - Looking @ Overdrive right now, the CPU Clockspeed varies up & down, as does the Thermal Margin (I am only on this site though). Though when it was in the video render example I mentioned, Thermal Margin just tumbles & tumbles, never bounces back up

Fan speed - I've seen it hit around 3,200 RPM @ highest (no idea if this is high, and what it's max is?), and currently it's @ 2,700 RPM. Yes it does get pretty noisy when I'm doing the render.

What's interesting is Overdrive isn't showing any reading, for any of my PC's fans!
Though Speccy still is, and gives me a CPU reading (see screenshots).

That is a good point, I can for sure hear at least "fan noise" from my PC case, but since there's 3-4 fans in there, it's potential one could be not working and I don't hear it. Any way to tell, aside from using PC monitoring softwares?

Would you expect the PC would work at all, without a CPU fan?

 

[Dugimodo]

Have you checked the heatsink is secure and doesn't need cleaning?
How long since the system was built? it's possible the heatsink needs to be removed and the heatsink paste cleaned off and replaced.

 

[madmatt30]

Your case fans are maybe linked,directly to,psu moles ?? In which case there is no monitoring available.

I'm not seeing any screenshots ??

The amd fans top out at around 4200rpm as far as I remember.

I'll be honest I've rarely ever used them (I have a drawer full somewhere)

They should be capably of maintaining decent temps albeit with the proviso of massive amounts of noise.

Your temps though ?? They're dangerous & surely the cause of your shutdown issues.

How old is this system ,,has it always run like this ?

Check your cooler install, I know it's fairly hard to muck it up with the 2 tabs & lever lock system,but something is amiss here.

 

[hughjanus]

Have you checked the heatsink is secure and doesn't need cleaning?
How long since the system was built? it's possible the heatsink needs to be removed and the heatsink paste cleaned off and replaced.

Yes, everything looked ok a couple of months ago, when I was cleaning out inside the case. There wasn't much dust in there when I went to clean it, and it was as clean as I could get it after that.

Built the system in July 2014. Possibly yes it could need new paste due to the age; how often would you recommend applying new paste?
And how easy is it to take off the fan? (When I built it, I remember the adhesive was super sticky - want to make sure I don't damage anything haha)

Do you not find it strange that regardless if the CPU Fan isn't sufficient, the CPU isn't throttling down to cool itself?

 

[hughjanus]

Your case fans are maybe linked,directly to,psu moles ?? In which case there is no monitoring available.

I'm not seeing any screenshots ??

The amd fans top out at around 4200rpm as far as I remember.

I'll be honest I've rarely ever used them (I have a drawer full somewhere)

They should be capably of maintaining decent temps albeit with the proviso of massive amounts of noise.

Your temps though ?? They're dangerous & surely the cause of your shutdown issues.

How old is this system ,,has it always run like this ?

Check your cooler install, I know it's fairly hard to muck it up with the 2 tabs & lever lock system,but something is amiss here.

Case fans - I'm not 100% sure lol, not a PC expert. The 2 case fans I've got, came built in with the case. I just plugged them in with how it said to in the manual.
Same with the CPU Fan - just plugged it in as instructed.

Sorry, I'll try uploading the screenshots again to this message; The screenshots compare the (lack of) fan readings in Overdrive, compared to Speccy (which has some weird readings going on for the "TMPIN"s!)

Regarding CPU fan speed - Hmm that's strange, as on Speccy, I've only seen the CPU fan peak @ around 3,200-3,300 RPM.

System - built in July 2014, and no has been running totally fine until recently, no crashes that I can remember. The 1st types of crashes I got (a few months back), were when the PC screen would totally freeze up (mouse wouldn't move, clock would stop, couldn't get into Ctrl+Alt+Del), no idea if this could also be down to CPU heat?
But yes, for sure I think the CPU heat must be causing at least some of the "sudden shutdown" type crashes.

Will take a look at the cooler install.
By the way, do you have any recommendations for a better CPU fan?
Is there any point in getting another case fan, or will this not affect CPU temps?