Question PC crashes and automatically reboots randomly HELP!

[plasma.turtle10]

This has been going on for months now. Usually after I use my computer for a few hours, it crashes and automatically restarts itself, no windows restarting message, no nothing (sometimes distorting the current sound that's playing). At times there would random sudden sound distortion of what's playing on my desktop such as Youtube, it lasts for a fraction of a second.

The odd part is my pc never crashes if I have a game running that uses a different resolution such as Fortnite (I play on stretched res so it changes the resolution). This leads me to think it's a software issue but I'm not completely sure. I don't think my pc is overheating either as I checked my temps around the time it crashed.

Any idea what's going on or solutions would help.....

Custom built pc. Reused cpu and ram from hp desktop.

specs:
cpu: AMD Ryzen 7 1700
ram: 16gb DDR4
gpu: GTX 1060 6gb (factory overclocked)
hdd: 1tb 7200 rpm
ssd: 480gb sandisk
mobo: Gigabyte GA AB350M DS3H
psu: EVGA 500w

 

[Ralston18]

Check Event Viewer and Reliability History/Manager for error codes and warnings just before or at the time of the crashes.

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to observe system performance. First while not gaming and then while gaming.

Overall, the PSU may be the main suspect. Over time, PSU's degrade and simply cannot keep up with the power demands of gaming.

Okay at some given resolution(s) but falters at some higher threshold value.

Key is to discover some specific error codes or warnings that will help narrow down the source of the problem.

 

[plasma.turtle10]

Check Event Viewer and Reliability History/Manager for error codes and warnings just before or at the time of the crashes.

Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to observe system performance. First while not gaming and then while gaming.

Overall, the PSU may be the main suspect. Over time, PSU's degrade and simply cannot keep up with the power demands of gaming.

Okay at some given resolution(s) but falters at some higher threshold value.

Key is to discover some specific error codes or warnings that will help narrow down the source of the problem.

In Event Viewer, when my pc crashes I get a critical kernal-power message in saying -- "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

In Reliability Monitor it shows a bunch of critical-events and warnings. Most of them being "Windows 10 was not properly shut down", or "Windows 10 Update stopped working."

It doesn't seem that there's any change in system performance in Resource Monitor either which boggles me.

I'm honestly really confused on what's going on..

 

[Ralston18]

"Lost power unexpectedly" - that is one clue that, to me at least, suggests a PSU problem.

"Windows not properly shut down" is another clue but that could be in part from you having to do restarts after crashes.

And with no apparent changes in system performance again points to a possible power issue.

If viable, disconnect the 1 TB HDD, stop overclocking and determine if the computer stabilizes; i.e., no or fewer crashes. Anything to reduce the power demand(s).

Then bring back components one at a time. You may discover some threshold configuration that causes the crashes to start again.