PC keeps rebooting, more so during games, sometimes during cpu intensive tasks

[PowerGlove]

Hi!

My pc keeps rebooting when its trying to handle cpu intensive tasks, or ones that might cause a spike in usage. It doesn't seem to be overheating, but it's hard to tell because whenever I check the temperatures after a reboot it'll rapidly sink down due to the fan. I normally catch it in the mid 50s as it starts going back down, so it could be going higher.

It didn't use to be like this at all, then it started happening after I started playing FFXIV, then became more and more common with that game until I stopped playing because of it. It never use to do it in my other games such as counterstrike or tf2, but now seems to be getting more and more common in them to the point where it also happens rarely (like when it began with ffxiv) during chrome if I have lots of things open.

I think I might have an overheating issue due to poorly applied thermal paste that was already pre-applied to my heatsink.


My specs are
intel i5 4690k, OC edition but I've made everything normalised with no offset.. but I think it might be doing it automatically and I'm not sure how to change that. It's ran through ASUS.
ASUS Z97 MK II Sabertooth MB
ASUS Strix GTX 960
2x DDR3 8GB RAM
650w Seasonic PSU


The games and things I run are barely that intensive, my old machine that had an AMD dual core and a gtx 560 never struggled like this.

chkdsk reports 0 faults. PSU doesn't seem to be the one failing otherwise i'd fail at random rather than on loads.

GPU doesn't spit out any errors, doesn't seem to be any either but I don't know if it might be that having issues.

Memtest gave me the green light two weeks before.


My pc suddenly turns off, waits a few moments, then starts up again as if nothing happened.I can see the LEDs on my mother board go red, most noticeably for a long period of time during startup on the harddrive connection port LED.


Any help would be greatly appreciated


**EDIT AND ADDENDUM: I never did any of the OC myself. it seems to be all auto software or inbuilt. I also cannot seem to reset the bios due to the way the motherboard has its custom UI that doesn't seem to feature the option.

 

[hunterbob33]

I had a similar issue with my pc I run completely different hardware but in my case I had done some minor overclocking that caused an instability which lead to the same crashes your describing. If you happen to have overclocked that could be the issue. I also had a friend with a setup similar to yours who had similar crashes which turned out to be a fault in his psu after replacing it the issue was resolved. I don't know if any of these apply to you but I hope they help!

 

[PowerGlove]

I had a similar issue with my pc I run completely different hardware but in my case I had done some minor overclocking that caused an instability which lead to the same crashes your describing. If you happen to have overclocked that could be the issue. I also had a friend with a setup similar to yours who had similar crashes which turned out to be a fault in his psu after replacing it the issue was resolved. I don't know if any of these apply to you but I hope they help!

Every little bit of advice helps friend

I wish I had a spare PSU to check before I invested in a new one. I'll be removing the OC software and resetting my bios back to default and seeing what happens.

It'd be strange for it to be the PSU's fault since it's still putting along and not outright dying. I've inspected it and besides all that white gunk adhesive that they use everything seems normal, but the capacity could be diminished or something and can't handle the draw my gpu or whatever else wants sometimes.

 

[hunterbob33]

I had a similar issue with my pc I run completely different hardware but in my case I had done some minor overclocking that caused an instability which lead to the same crashes your describing. If you happen to have overclocked that could be the issue. I also had a friend with a setup similar to yours who had similar crashes which turned out to be a fault in his psu after replacing it the issue was resolved. I don't know if any of these apply to you but I hope they help!

Every little bit of advice helps friend

I wish I had a spare PSU to check before I invested in a new one. I'll be removing the OC software and resetting my bios back to default and seeing what happens.

It'd be strange for it to be the PSU's fault since it's still putting along and not outright dying. I've inspected it and besides all that white gunk adhesive that they use everything seems normal, but the capacity could be diminished or something and can't handle the draw my gpu or whatever else wants sometimes.

To my understanding of what happened to my friend his psu must've either come with a fault that happened to just show up at random or something (maybe a power surge) caused damage which eventually lead to a total system failure. For your sake I hope that removing the software fixes it! Good luck!

 

[mamasan2000]

I can think of 3 reasons.

Faulty RAM (run memtest, 1 stick at a time)

PSU not providing enough wattage/broke (tone down OC, run less powerdemanding things but still pushing CPU or GPU, see if it still happens. Get a Wattmeter that plugs to wall outlet, 10-20 dollars, see if you are hitting the limit)

Unstable OC. Can be too much voltage on CPU or too little. Same with NB and RAM voltage. Can be bad RAM timings. Loosen them up.
Can be energy saving like C1E, C6 etc.

PSU is the hardest to check.


Besides that, the single best thing to check is usually Event Monitor.
Windowsbutton+R, type eventvwr.msc. Go to Windows logs, System. Then on right side, click Filter Log, tick Critical and OK. Check the times. What time was it when PC crashed, try to find a log that corresponds to that.

 

[PowerGlove]

I can think of 3 reasons.

Faulty RAM (run memtest, 1 stick at a time)

PSU not providing enough wattage/broke (tone down OC, run less powerdemanding things but still pushing CPU or GPU, see if it still happens. Get a Wattmeter that plugs to wall outlet, 10-20 dollars, see if you are hitting the limit)

Unstable OC. Can be too much voltage on CPU or too little. Same with NB and RAM voltage. Can be bad RAM timings. Loosen them up.
Can be energy saving like C1E, C6 etc.

PSU is the hardest to check.


Besides that, the single best thing to check is usually Event Monitor.
Windowsbutton+R, type eventvwr.msc. Go to Windows logs, System. Then on right side, click Filter Log, tick Critical and OK. Check the times. What time was it when PC crashed, try to find a log that corresponds to that.

I haven't touched the OC. It's all auto. In the boot menu/custom 'bios' there's a tab for all of it, and all of it is on auto. Best I can do is manual, which is only for specific tuning and that isn't what I want either. Doesn't seem to be any 'off switch'.

I've checked Event Viewer before prior to a reboot, nothing shows up. i really wish i got a BSOD so I could at least get an error code.

Everything about this setup is pretty much default, all plug in and play. My trouble is that I think it's doing things automatically that it can't seem to handle and it's screwing itself over because of it and I can't seem to stop it.