[SOLVED] PC Restarting while Gaming. New to understanding Hardware.

Nov 20, 2018
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Event Viewer Screenshot: https://imgur.com/M8MupR6
I've highlighted exactly the point where the restart is happening. What steps do I take from here?

My PC keeps restarting on its own every time I enter Final Fantasy XIV. The monitor turns black and then quickly begins the restart process. No blue screen and nothing unusual besides that on my PC or during the restart process. I have not seen the open world since this started happening.
I can open Maple Story 2 and play it fully.
I can sometimes open Sea of Thieves (still haven't seen the open world yet though)
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I just posted a thread on my PCs temperatures and decided to open a new thread to see if this would help sort out the issue more efficiently.
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I obtained this PC from a friend and am only as of yesterday starting to learn about PCs. I want to keep gaming.
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I used FurMark and my PC restarted right away.
I had not opened either of these games in probably over a year or so on this PC but they used to open without problems.
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Specs:
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Version 10.0.17134 Build 17134

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name DESKTOP-FI7T9GH

System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Type x64-based PC

System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.40, 9/3/2014
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GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
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Installed memory (RAM): 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
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PSU: thermaltake smart m850w 80 plus bronze
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My budget is TBD. All I know is I want these games and future games I install (that will likely require high level requirements for raid content) to work smoothly :) New to hardcore gaming, but I don’t plan on stopping any time soon
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So far it's been suggested to move my cooler. But I question that being the culprit.

New to hardware language. Does anyone have any next-step suggestions? I've dusted the PC yesterday and the issue persists.
 
Solution
MSI Afterburner has an option to log results (Settings > Monitoring, then scroll down to 'Hardware monitoring history logging properties'), although you can have an overlay over your game for selected things you want to keep an eye on as well.

Hopefully we might see some sort of activity when the game crashes to desktop (which is what it is sounding like in some respect). The fullest amount of things to monitor would be: CPU (all cores/threads), GPU and RAM frequencies and usage; CPU and GPU temperatures; fps and frame times; and (as last resort) page file. My hope is, when monitoring these things, we might be able to detect a pattern of hardware activity leading to the crash.

The other aspect is whether it is a software issue. (I'm...
Given your description and the critical notice in Event Viewer, I would first check to see if the power supply is working properly (as this seems to be the most suspect component to me). It sounds like when a more intensive processing is required there isn't the power to supply it, so the PC shuts down as a result.

Try downloading HWiNFO, install it, open it, go to sensors to bring up the window, then scroll down to the motherboard section to look at the power running through the motherboard. Take a snapshot and post here.
 
Nov 20, 2018
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Thanks, I hadn't realized someone responded for some reason, otherwise I would have replied pretty much immediately so that I could get this fixed!

https://imgur.com/a/2gphOdm : screenshot for what you've asked I believe
Wasn't playing any games while I took this screenshot. Not sure if that matters.

Update: My PC started restarting itself sometimes after an hour of playing FFXIV and not really ever when I start the game any more, but occasionally it still restarts maybe within 5 minutes after starting to play FFXiV.
Here's what I did prior to this change in my gaming experience:
1. Dusted the inside of the PC including the two fans inside of it.
2. Resetted this PC using system settings and reinstalled Windows 10 after (didn't clean the drive, just wiped everything else off using the Microsoft reset pc option.)
3. Installed AVG free trial version (this was not on my PC prior to my reset) It did find issues and cleared them out.

After all of this, FFXIV started letting me play it for sometimes over an hour, but the system would inevitably reset itself after usually 1 hour +. I have not yet heard my fan make a louder noise just before it restarts the system. I have however heard a hard to hear vibration noise everytime I open FFXIV, whereas when I minimize FFXIV the sound stops happening. It doesn't sound like something's wrong, as it's a very smooth vibration - and I would just think the sound is normal but just sharing any info I can!
There's no pattern of when it resets itself that I have found, except I have seen it reset itself twice while in a cutscene.
 
Nov 20, 2018
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Thank you Obakasama. After having a friend who has experimented with PCs quite a bit in his past, come over, he did feel led to believe that it was the PSU. I am going to test it out with my friend's PSU from a PC he just replaced with a new one. I replaced my GPU with an old one and nothing changed with the issue.

The pattern he found, was that when I switch out of FFXIV to browse something on the internet or to do something else in general, the system resets itself. This was also more likely to happen when I uncapped FFXIV's FPS (when I uncapped the fps it went up to 200 fps instead of 60 fps.)

My friend pretty strongly thinks it's a hardware issue, and that it's likely the PSU,....it looks like i'll be replacing both my PSU and GPU with my friend's here soon nonetheless.
 
There was a news item this past week about a specific line of Seasonic PSUs have some issues with specific Nvidia graphics cards. So it could be a very specific combination of hardware which causes it.

I would suggest replacing the components one at a time to see if the problem replicates. I know you've mentioned it's somewhat random, but do whatever it is which tends to be the main trigger for the issue to see if it happens with the hardware change. If the problem isn't replicated when a specific piece of hardware is replaced then it could be the replaced hardware is the issue.

Has the PC ever got a blue screen of death crash? I'm thinking if it has, then it might be worth configuring Windows created a crash dump file so others can help identify probable issues.
 
Nov 20, 2018
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0 Blue screen of death crashes, and now that my friend has experimented with it, we found that if i raise the graphics settings on FFXIV to super high, it resets my system pretty dang soon after. and if I use Fur Mark, it crashes while testing with Fur Mark every single time so far. Once I replace the PSU I can definitely test it out before I replace the GPU as well.
 
Nov 20, 2018
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So, if I leave open MSI Afterburner while having the game in windowed mode, shall I just watch for any changes and make note of them? Or is there a different process in MSI Afterburner you suggest for making note of abnormalities?
 
MSI Afterburner has an option to log results (Settings > Monitoring, then scroll down to 'Hardware monitoring history logging properties'), although you can have an overlay over your game for selected things you want to keep an eye on as well.

Hopefully we might see some sort of activity when the game crashes to desktop (which is what it is sounding like in some respect). The fullest amount of things to monitor would be: CPU (all cores/threads), GPU and RAM frequencies and usage; CPU and GPU temperatures; fps and frame times; and (as last resort) page file. My hope is, when monitoring these things, we might be able to detect a pattern of hardware activity leading to the crash.

The other aspect is whether it is a software issue. (I'm thinking of how mods are set up in Skyrim, for example. A poor set up will lead to crashes at specific points.) But on that note, have you tried clean installing your graphics drivers? (May as well rule out as many possibilities when there's nothing obvious.)
 
Solution
there's a thread over on the GeoForce forums that you mind find interesting to this issue - apparently a number of Nvidia drivers are buggy, and the first thing they recommend when suffering BSODs or Black Screens is to revert to an earlier known stable driver. I had a black screen issue and this worked for me

start at the 3rd post in the thread - https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1035287/nvlddmkm-sys-crashing/?offset=1

and if you decide to try it, follow the Mod's instructions for un-installing previous nvidia drivers

when you re-install, choose "Custom" and uncheck everything but the driver

PS - fwiw, pretty regular on the Geforce forums, a mod will suggest the user un-install the MSI Afterburner app, they state it has caused conflicts with the NVidia drivers
 
Nov 20, 2018
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Thanks so much everyone, I want to check out the last comments I've received on this thread possibly tomorrow and get back to looking at what the issue is. Busy evening yesterday and busy day today. I really appreciate the help.
 
try that instruction set for removing all previous Nvidia drivers - the more threads i read over there, it's not just a case of unstable drivers, but drivers loaded on top of previous drivers causing BSODs

the 397.92 or 397.93 seem to be stable drivers - i tried them both and had no issues