PC crash sometimes, takes a while to turn on

[teplous15]

Alright, so this has only been a recent occurrence, but when I play semi-intensive games (Dota, CS:GO, Witcher, etc.), my entire PC will crash, with my monitor displaying barred lines all over. Sometimes my PC will instantly restart and it's not really a big deal, but sometimes it can take hours to successfully restart. After looking at other threads with some saying it's a PSU issue, I went and checked the "PSU Tier List" and have found out my PSU is a Tier 4.

Is my low-tier PSU likely the cause for my PC crashes? I've had this PC for roughly 20 months and has only occurred for the last 2-3. The only thing that doesn't lead me to think it's a PSU issue the idea that barred lines appear on my screen, but I'm able to hear in-game audio.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My PC specs are below:
FSP Raider (500 Watt from memory)
Intel i-5 4670 @ 3.40 GHz
8gb RAM (2x4)
Windows 8 64 bit
R9 270x GPU

 

[Hawkshot]

never even heard of the PSU brand so I would say replace it for something more suitable for gaming maybe something made by XFX or SeaSonic these are both amazingly build PSU's, from what you described it dosent really sound like a PSU issue it sounds more like something going wrong in your hard drive, if you can you may want to look into doing a fresh install of windows because the long boot times sounds like the computer cant pull the right information maybe due to a Virus or fragmented disk. First thing I would do is run a Defrag on your Disk unless its an SSD, after that you will want to do a Disk clean, if neither of these help go on google type in ComboFix this should take you to a site called Bleepingcomputer download the Combofix software onto a USB, start the computer in safe mode and run combofix wait for this to run its course could take upto 20 mins then reboot, if that dosent help fresh install of windows and finally if that dosent help it could be your PSU but It dosent sound likely.

 

[teplous15]

never even heard of the PSU brand so I would say replace it for something more suitable for gaming maybe something made by XFX or SeaSonic these are both amazingly build PSU's, from what you described it dosent really sound like a PSU issue it sounds more like something going wrong in your hard drive, if you can you may want to look into doing a fresh install of windows because the long boot times sounds like the computer cant pull the right information maybe due to a Virus or fragmented disk. First thing I would do is run a Defrag on your Disk unless its an SSD, after that you will want to do a Disk clean, if neither of these help go on google type in ComboFix this should take you to a site called Bleepingcomputer download the Combofix software onto a USB, start the computer in safe mode and run combofix wait for this to run its course could take upto 20 mins then reboot, if that dosent help fresh install of windows and finally if that dosent help it could be your PSU but It dosent sound likely.

Hey, I appreciate the response! My OS is currently installed on a SSD, what exactly does a disk clean entail? does it mean everything is completely wiped?
Also, it's more often than not that it restarts with ease. It only occurs when playing games and NEVER when using my PC for casual use E.g. Youtube, general browsing etc.

 

[teplous15]

never even heard of the PSU brand so I would say replace it for something more suitable for gaming maybe something made by XFX or SeaSonic these are both amazingly build PSU's, from what you described it dosent really sound like a PSU issue it sounds more like something going wrong in your hard drive, if you can you may want to look into doing a fresh install of windows because the long boot times sounds like the computer cant pull the right information maybe due to a Virus or fragmented disk. First thing I would do is run a Defrag on your Disk unless its an SSD, after that you will want to do a Disk clean, if neither of these help go on google type in ComboFix this should take you to a site called Bleepingcomputer download the Combofix software onto a USB, start the computer in safe mode and run combofix wait for this to run its course could take upto 20 mins then reboot, if that dosent help fresh install of windows and finally if that dosent help it could be your PSU but It dosent sound likely.

Hey, I appreciate the response! My OS is currently installed on a SSD, what exactly does a disk clean entail? does it mean everything is completely wiped?
Also, it's more often than not that it restarts with ease. It only occurs when playing games and NEVER when using my PC for casual use E.g. Youtube, general browsing etc.

 

[Hawkshot]

never even heard of the PSU brand so I would say replace it for something more suitable for gaming maybe something made by XFX or SeaSonic these are both amazingly build PSU's, from what you described it dosent really sound like a PSU issue it sounds more like something going wrong in your hard drive, if you can you may want to look into doing a fresh install of windows because the long boot times sounds like the computer cant pull the right information maybe due to a Virus or fragmented disk. First thing I would do is run a Defrag on your Disk unless its an SSD, after that you will want to do a Disk clean, if neither of these help go on google type in ComboFix this should take you to a site called Bleepingcomputer download the Combofix software onto a USB, start the computer in safe mode and run combofix wait for this to run its course could take upto 20 mins then reboot, if that dosent help fresh install of windows and finally if that dosent help it could be your PSU but It dosent sound likely.

Hey, I appreciate the response! My OS is currently installed on a SSD, what exactly does a disk clean entail? does it mean everything is completely wiped?
Also, it's more often than not that it restarts with ease. It only occurs when playing games and NEVER when using my PC for casual use E.g. Youtube, general browsing etc.

nope a disk clean goes around and deletes any unwanted/junk files, when it pulls through all the files it could delete it shows you a window where you are available to deselect things if you don't want them to be deleted.

Then that could be overheating more than anything else have you monitored your temps while doing a stress test on your computer? if not I would suggest doing so, this could also account for the long boot times as parts will need to cool down,

 

[teplous15]

never even heard of the PSU brand so I would say replace it for something more suitable for gaming maybe something made by XFX or SeaSonic these are both amazingly build PSU's, from what you described it dosent really sound like a PSU issue it sounds more like something going wrong in your hard drive, if you can you may want to look into doing a fresh install of windows because the long boot times sounds like the computer cant pull the right information maybe due to a Virus or fragmented disk. First thing I would do is run a Defrag on your Disk unless its an SSD, after that you will want to do a Disk clean, if neither of these help go on google type in ComboFix this should take you to a site called Bleepingcomputer download the Combofix software onto a USB, start the computer in safe mode and run combofix wait for this to run its course could take upto 20 mins then reboot, if that dosent help fresh install of windows and finally if that dosent help it could be your PSU but It dosent sound likely.

Hey, I appreciate the response! My OS is currently installed on a SSD, what exactly does a disk clean entail? does it mean everything is completely wiped?
Also, it's more often than not that it restarts with ease. It only occurs when playing games and NEVER when using my PC for casual use E.g. Youtube, general browsing etc.

nope a disk clean goes around and deletes any unwanted/junk files, when it pulls through all the files it could delete it shows you a window where you are available to deselect things if you don't want them to be deleted.

Then that could be overheating more than anything else have you monitored your temps while doing a stress test on your computer? if not I would suggest doing so, this could also account for the long boot times as parts will need to cool down,

I have once monitored the temperatures, probably about 2 days ago. When playing a game (From memory it was Dota 2), it hovered at around 60°C

 

[Hawkshot]

was that the GPU temp because if so that's fairly high for a low spec graphics game like Dota2

 

[teplous15]

was that the GPU temp because if so that's fairly high for a low spec graphics game like Dota2

Okay, so I checked using RealTemp and it says that temperature is 70, and load is at around 90%. I don't really know what temperature it's telling me, but it seems super high.
Are these issues I can fix by getting more fans in my PC?