PC keeps turning off/on

[Jakob Tischler]

Hello all,

I currently have a rather weird problem that I couldn't find an answer for, so far. Every once in a while (I know, vague) my PC turns itself off and then immediately on again. It's not complete shutdown, though, it's rather like a sleep or hibernate mode. Windows and all the programs etc. keep running. Sometimes it only does it once, but sometimes it does it e.g. 10 times in a row. Each time it's ca. 1 second turn off, 2 second turn on. Since I have a master slave power board, my monitors and sound system etc. turn off/on as well. I cannot pin point an exact occurring time - to me it seems to be happening at random, which I know of course is probably not the case. But it happens mostly when there's almost no load (CPU or GPU)

I recently installed a new graphics card, which I'm pretty sure must have something to do with it (see specs further down). My power supply is 530W, which is not a lot for the hardware setup, but should still suffice.

At first I thought it was some weird hibernation bug, so I turned it off completely, without success. Then I thought it might be one of the USB accessories, so I unplugged all unnecessary ones, again without success. Then I had AIDA running while it happened, and made a screenshot of the sensory values immediately:

I can't make out anything out of the order. The temperatures aren't too hot, the voltages seem fine. So here's where I'm running out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.


System specs:
CPU: Intel i5-4670K @ 3400MHz (not overclocked)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G43
RAM: 2x DDR3-1600 4GB (G Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBXL)
BIOS: AMI v1.6
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX Cooler, 4GB GDDR5 (Drivers: nVidia 335.23)
HDDs: Samsung SSD 840 Pro (system HDD), Samsung HD103UJ, Samsung HD501LJ, WD Ext HDD 1021 USB
DVD: Asus DRW-24B3ST
Power Supply: BeQuiet L7-530W
OS: Windows 8.1 Enterprise

 

[cin19]

Maybe the PSU problem, from here http://pcfoster.pl/public/images/recenzje/pure_power/pure_02.JPG you can see the 12V1/12V2 total only has 35A, and from EVGA your GPU need 42A on the 12V rails. http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-3774-KR
You can try to unclock the GPU using the EVGA software or MSI afterburner, or try other PSU if you ( or your friend ) have one.

 

[nostall]

Good chance cin19 is right about the PSU. Though the Nvidia card, at maximum draw, should only draw 230watts or about 20amps, the rest of the system is drawing power too.
But try this first, just for grins.
Go to Control Panel>Power options.
Select High Performance (and you will probably want to leave that as Your default selection)
Click 'Change plan setting' (yes, I know you have already been here)
Click 'Change advanced power settings'
Click 'Change settings....unavailable'
Make sure the require password on wake up is "No".
Open Hard disk: make certain 'Turn off hard drive' is marked 'never'
Open 'Sleep", Open Allow 'wake timers', set as 'disable'
Open USB Settings, open USB selective suspend setting: mark Disabled

Don't know if this will solve the problem, but worth a shot. I had a similar but less severe problem like yours and these changes stopped it. NOTE: Windows Updates can change these settings on occasion - worth re-checking after their updates.

 

[Jakob Tischler]

@cin19: I have to admit I didn't look at the amp usage when buying the GPU. This sounds like a very probable explanation.

@nostall: I played around with the power options settings before, and had no luck whatsoever.

Thanks at the both of you. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get a new PSU. I'll let you know if that solves it.

 

[nostall]

Sorry the power stuff didn't work. (annotation; see last part of this post fist, then read the stuff immediately below)
When choosing a new power supply be sure to buy a quality unit. Johnnyguru.com has tested two of the BeQuiet Dark Power series and found them to be excellent. Beyond that I know nothing about the brand.
Choose a psu from them in that series, or from Corsair (TX,HX or AX; RM850 is good, but not necessarily the lesser power ones), Seasonic, XFX, Antec (some pretty good deals out there on Antec, gotta search though), and newer EVGA SuperNova's.
You can probably get by on a 600 watt unit (I am kinda surprised that your 530 isn't doing the job), but I am a believer in a little more over-provisioning and would probably go 650.
You can use pcpartpicker.com to shop; just remember to choose your country in the upper right corner.
If you would like, let us know where you reside and the forum members will happily suggest some psu's.
OOhh, one more thing before you spend money on a new PSU. Actually two more things.
Did you do a 'clean install' of the new drivers and card; if not, try that.
Next: If your old video card was an Nvidia, reinstall it and see if the problem continues.
If the old card was a Radeon, you may have to hunt down all the old ATI/Radeon/AMD registry entries and manually delete what ever you fnd. CCleaner can do a lot that for you, and probably wouldn't hurt to load it and run it anyway.
Free version available at Piriform.com: Note, be sure you download from Piriform; I have had their mirror sites put stuff on my PC I didn't want.