PC Restarts while gaming (NOT PSU OR OVERHEATING)

[kamranhasak47]

I've been having this issue for the past few years now. As the title states, its not the PSU (I've replace it, still happens) and not overheating (I monitor temps while gaming, CPU and GPU look fine, CPU doesn't pass 70ish degrees while GPU maintains 70ish degrees during load). Restarts happen once every other gaming sessions. Its not the memory; memtest86 shows 0 errors. I've also replaced the CPU cooler; no luck. Here are my specs:

CPU: i7 4790k
Mobo: Asus Maximus Gene VII
GPU: Asus 980 Matrix
PSU: Corsair AX860
CPU Cooler: Corsair h110i
Case; Phanteks Enthoo Evolve mATX (first model)

Every time I play a game, I'm paranoid my entire system will reset. The error I get is the "kernel-power" error in the Windows event log viewer.

Tidbits that may help diagnose the problem:
-I have 3 drives: One with Windows installed on it (120GB SSD), one for games (240GB SSD), one for miscellaneous (1TB HDD)
-GPU Drivers are up-to-date
-nothing has been overclocked by me

If anybody could help me out, that would be great!

 

[InvalidError]

kernel-power is a generic error that means the system unexpectedly lost power for whatever reason. The most common reason for it would be a dying PSU. Since you are having the same issue after swapping the PSU, something (faulty component?) must be tripping one of the PSU's protections.

Another possibility is that there is a weird interaction between your PSU, CPU VRM and GPU that trips the PSU's protections - some combinations just won't work properly together under some circumstances. If you replaced the AX860 with another AX860, you may want to try a completely different model to rule out a possible model-specific quirk.

 

[kamranhasak47]

PSU's protections? I'm not familiar with that; how does a component trip a protection?

I've also replaced an AX760 with the AX860

The restarts aren't super frequent; I can game for hours one day with no problem, while another day (like today) it will restart 30 minutes in, though I can play the game after and it won't restart. I'm suspecting it might be a software issue, but have no way to confirm it.

 

[InvalidError]

I'm suspecting it might be a software issue, but have no way to confirm it.

When software causes the PC to crash, there usually is a panic/crash event in the system log, not a "kernel-power" event which usually means the PSU unexpectedly shut down for some reason.

PSUs have multiple protections built in that will cut power to (hopefully) prevent damage. Over-voltage and under-voltage protections for example will shut down the PSU if a voltage goes out of bounds, which can happen when there is a large and excessively fast rise or fall in load current, such as a simultaneous drop or increase in GPU and CPU load. Another scenario that can mistrigger protections is when two VRMs keep 'chasing' each other: the load on one VRM changes, which causes a small change in rail voltage and a second VRM to have to change its duty cycle, which also causes a small change in rail voltage that the first VRM needs to adjust to, rinse and repeat until the VRMs' responses to each other goes beyond what the PSU can cope with.

In the "try a different model" department, the AX760 and AX860 are about as far apart on the PSU evolutionary tree as identical twins, they're both made of fundamentally the same stuff and very likely to share the same quirks. You may want to try something completely different like a $50-60 620W Seasonic S12-II. Not the sexiest PSU by modern standards but it is still a solid bang-per-buck unit for testing whether your issue might be a model-specific PSU quirk with your setup.

 

[kamranhasak47]

I suppose trying a new PSU is all I can do at this point. I'll give it a try