[SOLVED] Old PC Dying

May 29, 2020
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Hey

In 2012, I built my first PC, and it has been great. Beginning in the fall of last year, I began getting random restarts. At this point, I've done enough troubleshooting and think its hardware failure.

I'm looking for help on which parts are probably still fine, how to check, and what the best bang for my buck would be. Current specs are below:

CPU - Intel 17-2700K CPU @ 3.50GHz

GPU - Radeon RX 570 (this was my most recent addition; I had a GTx 570 and it was starting to fall behind on new games)

MOBO - ASUS P8Z68-V LX

Memory - 4 x 4 ram sticks (corsair vengeance)

Storage - OCZ-Vertex3 90GB (boot drive); SanDisk SSD Plus HDD 1TB (drive to hold game files and media)

Case - Thor V2 ATX Full Tower (got this on sale 8 years ago and not in love with it)

Power Supply - Seasonic SS-650KM Active PFC F3

Open to all suggestions. Thanks!
 
Solution
Random reboots or shutdowns are mostly caused by 2 issues:
  1. CPU/GPU overheats and to prevent any damage, system shuts down.
  2. PSU fails to deliver enough power to the GPU or fails to keep smooth enough voltage for PC's operation.
First check your CPU/GPU temps, both at idle and under load. If temps are within reason then it's safe to assume that it's the PSU who is acting up.

As far as PSU goes, your Seasonic SS-650KM (aka X-series) is a good PSU but it's past of it's warranty period. All Seasonic X-series PSUs come with 7 years of warranty and you getting 8 years out of it is good. However, nothing lasts for forever.

When your temps are within reason and if you do go with new PSU, i again suggest getting any Seasonic unit...

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
Random reboots or shutdowns are mostly caused by 2 issues:
  1. CPU/GPU overheats and to prevent any damage, system shuts down.
  2. PSU fails to deliver enough power to the GPU or fails to keep smooth enough voltage for PC's operation.
First check your CPU/GPU temps, both at idle and under load. If temps are within reason then it's safe to assume that it's the PSU who is acting up.

As far as PSU goes, your Seasonic SS-650KM (aka X-series) is a good PSU but it's past of it's warranty period. All Seasonic X-series PSUs come with 7 years of warranty and you getting 8 years out of it is good. However, nothing lasts for forever.

When your temps are within reason and if you do go with new PSU, i again suggest getting any Seasonic unit, in 600W range. E.g: Focus 650 (80+ Gold) [Focus GM-650], Focus+ 650 (80+ Gold) [Focus GX-650], PRIME Ultra 650 (80+ Platinum) [PRIME PX-650] or PRIME Ultra 650 (80+ Titanium) [PRIME TX-650].

Warranty wise:
Focus: 7 years
Focus+: 10 years
PRIME: 12 years (includes all PRIME models: regular, Fanless, AirTouch, SnowSilent, Ultra)

All 3 of my PCs: Skylake, Haswell and AMD are also powered by Seasonic. Full specs with pics in my sig.
 
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Solution
May 29, 2020
2
0
10
Before pointing to the PSU, I'd like to know what kind of restarts you are getting. Is it just black screen and no warnings, or is there any warnings, (BSOD)? Was it random or was it always at full load?

The restarts are most often a blink off and blink on. I have my pc plugged directly into the wall. I do live in an apartment, and we have powerline network adaptors. That may be a cause, but I have no idea.

As for full load, there doesn't seem to be a pattern. I have run temp monitors, and my system stays cool. I do not have my PCU OC'd (but I have in the past, and that may be the problem). I have had it blink off when watching youtube, and been able to play games for hours with no problem.

There has been no BSOD. Just restarts.
 

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
we have powerline network adaptors. That may be a cause

If that would be cause, all other your electronical devices would turn off at same time as your PC reboots (loss of power in whole apartment), however, i don't think that is the cause.
If it would be the cause, a good quality UPS would solve any issue you might have with electrical grid. Good UPS brands to go for are CyberPower, TrippLite and APC.

I still think the cause would be in aged PSU.
However, to rule out GPU, unplug your GPU from your PC completely and connect your monitor to your MoBo (DVI or HDMI). This way, you'd be using your CPU's on-board graphics. While you can't game on iGPU, you can watch Youtube and that is the main criteria for your reboots.
If reboots are gone, the issue is most likely with GPU. Could be with PSU as well since GPU puts quite a bit of load on PSU. If reboots still happen then your GPU isn't the issue.