Question PC restarts when starting/playing games

[Michael Jacky]

Hey,

I've been having this issue for a few weeks now. First it started with my not being able to launch or play Squad because that caused the PC to restart. A week or so ago I installed League of Legends to play with my BF, and it happened in that game too just when I was about to load into the game. Not in the loading screen, but justy when everyone has loaded 100% and it's about to load in and match is about to start it happens. But, then I tried this week to play alone, and it worked fine...
I tried Moder Warfare (2019) this week, happened then too, but only first time, second time I started it it ran fine.
Now it has started happening when I am about to join a game in Warthunder too...
I have no clue what could be the cause.

My current specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
MOBO: Asus X570-F Gaming
GPU: Asus RTX 3080 Gaming OC
RAM: G.Skill 2x8GB 3600MHz running with D.O.C.P
SSD: Samsung 970 Evo1TB, Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, Samsung 860 EVO 250GB (OS Drive)
Cooler: Asus Ryuo 240mm AIO
PSU: BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 11 1200W

I have tried everything I can think of.
I first used a Corsair HX1000i PSU, then switched to a Seasonic Prime Titanium 1000W I had lying around (that should work, it was completely unused), and finally bought the BeQuiet 1200W PSU to test if it wasn't enough wattage with 1000.
I tried changing my RAM from Corsair Vengeance RGB 2x16 3200MHz to the current G.Skill 2x8GB 3600MHz (that are acutally on the MOBOs compatibility list).
None of that worked.
Temps are fine, CPU rarely goes above 70 C (may be because of the stock thermal paste on there), GPU rarely goes above 60 C, everything else is just fine.
Thing is, the only game that has consistent crashes is Squad, the others are just kind of random...
Stresstests reveal nothing. OCCT (CPU and mem tests), Prime95, Cinebench, TimeSpy, CPU-Z tests, everything, is just working fine... Even tried Prime95 and TimeSpy at the sametime, temps barely go about 60 on CPU haha...
Another thread spoke of activating CSM in BIOS, so I did. Nothing changed.

This is like the weirdest issue I have ever experienced and I have no clue what could cause it...
My old PC never had these issues, with ANY game... In that I had a 6700K OCed to 4.4GHz, the Corsair RAM sticks I spoke of earlier, Aorus 1080 Ti Waterforce AIO, the Corsair HX1000i PSU...

Edit: Deactivated D.O.C.P, but did manual OC of RAM to 3600Mhz instead, same issue.

Edit2: Switched out the 3080 to my old 1080 Ti, same issue, so it's probably not GPU related.

Edit3: Clean install of Windows 10, still happens. Does this confirm hardware issue?

 

[EyyMunchian]

I've got two suggestions.

One, and I know a lot of people will kill me for this, lower your ram frequency to 3000 or 3200. Back on a system I worked on, When I push the 3600Mhz ram to actually run 3600Mhz the system restarts when doing anything memory intensive.

Two: Driver and firmware updates. The hardware you have is quite new, perhaps the motherboard manufacturer released a new version of the boards BIOS? your GPU drivers, are they up to date? If they are, try rollbacks. Use older, more stable versions of firmware (be careful however!)

Are you able to get heat recordings right before the crash? I understand you listed temperatures but are they during a stress test or real time gaming?
Also, have you tried overclocking the CPU? Keep it at stock for now while testing things to eliminate possible variables. If your CPU is overclocked perhaps it's instability causes system failure during a thread execution or a handle brought up during a game.

 

[Michael Jacky]

I've got two suggestions.

One, and I know a lot of people will kill me for this, lower your ram frequency to 3000 or 3200. Back on a system I worked on, When I push the 3600Mhz ram to actually run 3600Mhz the system restarts when doing anything memory intensive.

Two: Driver and firmware updates. The hardware you have is quite new, perhaps the motherboard manufacturer released a new version of the boards BIOS? your GPU drivers, are they up to date? If they are, try rollbacks. Use older, more stable versions of firmware (be careful however!)

Are you able to get heat recordings right before the crash? I understand you listed temperatures but are they during a stress test or real time gaming?
Also, have you tried overclocking the CPU? Keep it at stock for now while testing things to eliminate possible variables. If your CPU is overclocked perhaps it's instability causes system failure during a thread execution or a handle brought up during a game.

Everything is up to date (including BIOS), I did try using older Nvidia drivers to no avail.
I have gadgets that help keep track of system temps and also write logs, and there are no indications of overheating, even right before restart when playing games.
CPU is not overlcocked by me, the 5950X handles that part perfectly on it's own reaching 5GHz boost without issue.

Only thing really is memory, but the thing is, this happens on 2 different pairs of memory sticks. Both that I put to their advertised speeds, sure, but the first pair (Corsair Vengeance) had no issues in my previous computer.

I'll try removeing memory overclock, but doubt it'll work, and if it does, would that because the motherboard can't handle the memory speeds and/or timings?

 

[EyyMunchian]

Everything is up to date (including BIOS), I did try using older Nvidia drivers to no avail.
I have gadgets that help keep track of system temps and also write logs, and there are no indications of overheating, even right before restart when playing games.
CPU is not overlcocked by me, the 5950X handles that part perfectly on it's own reaching 5GHz boost without issue.

Only thing really is memory, but the thing is, this happens on 2 different pairs of memory sticks. Both that I put to their advertised speeds, sure, but the first pair (Corsair Vengeance) had no issues in my previous computer.

I'll try removeing memory overclock, but doubt it'll work, and if it does, would that because the motherboard can't handle the memory speeds and/or timings?

Most likely. Run the ram as default (as predetermined by the motherboard), if still restarts then manually lower it. go to around 2800 and if it still restarts then it most likely isn't your ram. We'll go from there.

 

[Michael Jacky]

Most likely. Run the ram as default (as predetermined by the motherboard), if still restarts then manually lower it. go to around 2800 and if it still restarts then it most likely isn't your ram. We'll go from there.

Put memory to default, then 2800, then when I tried getting it up to 3600MHz again it refuses to.
Considering these sticks worked fine with DOCP out of the box and now no longer work makes me suspicious that it's a different issue than the RAM itself...

Also, these last few restarts in games, Event Viewer haven't mentioned anything about ctfmon.exe like it did previously...


I am so confused... Why can't a completely new, supposedly compatible, PC just work?!