PC may have caused power outages?

[darthnox0]

Last night the power went out and then quickly came back on two times. I noticed that both times it happened while I was gaming on my PC. The first time it happened I was playing WoW. At first I thought nothing of it but then it happened an hour or two later when I was playing Dark Souls 3 and both games are kind of heavy on the CPU. I was able to play the games for like 20-30 minutes before it happened but I had been playing for hours earlier in the day. I’ve played several games on this PC setup at high to max graphics on a regular basis for months and have never experienced anything even slightly resembling this problem until now

After the second time it happened, I decided to call it a night, powered down and unplugged a lot of things. I haven’t used the PC since and haven’t noticed anymore power issues (though I guess theoretically it could have happened again while I was asleep). I just don’t want my entire apartment to lose power just from playing a video game or worse, some kind of surge that causes a fire.

These are my specs:
GPU: ASUS Geforce Gtx 1060 6gb
CPU: AMD FX-8350 (stock fan, no overclocking)
Motherbord: Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 micro ATX
PSU: EVGA Bronze 600w
RAM: 8gb DDR3
1 TB HDD 7200 RPM
I’ve had the CPU, the motherbord, the harddrive and RAM for a while now, but the graphics card and PSU are only a few months old. I use my HD TV as a monitor which is plugged into a power tree and connected to the GPU via HDMI. (Please don’t insult my GPU/CPU/Motherboard combination I know it’s awful, I’m saving up for new parts.)

As far as I can tell the power went out in at least 2 bedrooms which are next to each other, I don’t know if it affected any other section of the house but it’s probable. I just want to reiterate that the power went out and then immediately came back on by itself I didn’t have to switch anything back on.

I was thinking maybe I was using too much power because I had a lot of things plugged into all the outlets in my one bedroom alone. In particular I had 2 power trees plugged into one outlet which had my PC, my Modem, my TV, my Cable box, my Xbox, a guitar amplifier, a 9v adapter, and speakers all plugged in between the 2 trees in one outlet (I know that was stupid and I have since rearranged the setup to something safer with a lot less electronics plugged in but I wont get a chance to test it until later)

So I have a couple of questions. Number 1: Does the problem that I described sound like something that is caused from drawing too much power from my electronics, or does it sound like a problem with my PC/PSU or maybe a problem with the electrical wiring of the house itself? Or god forbid, a combination of 2 or all 3? I live in a really old, really crappy triplex apartment with a scummy landlord who I could definitely see having cheap electrical work done.

Number 2: A lot of the electronics I had plugged in were turned off like my hairdryer, my guitar amp, a large hepa air filter, and an inactive phone charger, but I’ve read about “phantom energy” where they will continue to draw some power while plugged in even though they’re shut off, so do you think a large amount of phantom energy being used could have contributed to a power overload and could unplugging all of these things make any difference in preventing too much power from being used?

Sorry if this is too long, just trying to provide as much info as possible.

 

[Zerk2012]

Your PC should trip the outlet breaker at the most not cause the complete loss of power in your house.

 

[DSzymborski]

At this point, it sounds coincidental more than anything.

 

[JamesSneed]

This is not because of drawing to much power as that would just trip the breaker. Sounds like you had flaky power to the apartment.

If you are worried about phantom power draw there is a very cheap and easy way to verify. You would hook up a "Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor" which are about $20 and it will show what is being drawn from the wall. However it would only be to save money if you pay for your electricity not excessive power draw as that is not what is going on here.

Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

 

[Paperdoc]

Excess power consumption means a high current draw on one circuit, and that can cause a breaker to trip off. Once that happens, the breaker almost NEVER re-sets itself to restore the power. Self-resetting breakers systems are rare and not used in the building's power system. When a breaker trips due to over-current conditions, it is IMPORTANT to inspect the circuit and its connected loads and determine why the excess current was happening, and correct the potentially dangerous condition BEFORE the breaker is re-set manually. That is why a self-resetting breaker is not used.

So, if your power cut out and then re-started by itself, your equipment did not cause a breaker to trip out. In fact, no simple breaker trip for any reason could cause that event. It is MUCH more likely that there is a flaw in the building wiring system - a loose connection point likely - that needs to be found and fixed. Contact the landlord right away.