So I have a PC for almost 6 and a half years now, that since mid December started to shut down randomly, followed by a reboot. It happened in the middle of the month, then in 4 days at the end of the month (27, 28, 29 and 31), and then at january 1st, 2nd, 3rd... It's doing it everyday at this point. It does shut down randomly but seems to be only around 5pm-8pm, I don't know if that's a coincidence or not. At that time, the pc has already been running for some hours, just like in the other days.
When it does shutdown, sometimes it is not able to boot back up right away. Sometimes it takes longer to POST, sometimes doesn't even POST. If it does POST, normally it just shuts back down some seconds after windows booted or even during boot, and keeps that boot loop. I need to keep the pc off for some minutes for it to be able to boot again. On the january 1st and 3rd it actually did boot successfully right after like nothing happened. However, if I boot into the bios, the pc does not shutdown and just stays there.
I was not doing any heavy tasks when the sudden shutdowns occurred, on the 28th the PC was actually just idling for some time when I heard it shutdown. The PC does turn back on automatically, even after I disabled the "Power On after power loss" option in bios.
This problem started to happen some days after I installed more RAM, from 8gb (2x4gb) to 16gb (4x4gb), but I have tried running the PC without the new RAM and it still happens, so I think it was just a coincidence. I also did run memtest after that and concluded that one of my old sticks is faulty (recent problem, I remember running memtest before), but since then I remove it (running with 12gb of ram) and the problem persists. I also installed a SSD 2 years ago, so that's another upgrade that was done.
I have tried:
There are no weird noises that I can hear, temperatures are ok for everything (cpu, gpu and motherboard idling at around the 30s, 20s for the ssd and hdd). Under load, cpu and gpu get to around 50/60. Can't see any blown capacitors on the motherboard either.
Voltages also seem to be ok, +12V is always between 11,93V and 12,25V, that's the minimum and maximum I've seen.
I can't replicate the problem so it's really hard to test stuff. I still want to try booting from another disk with a fresh install and try a different power supply, but I need to do it when it starts boot looping again... I did boot from a USB stick I have here with the w10 installation and it did not shutdown there (when it was boot looping going to windows). Could it be the motherboard? CPU? I've seen on some threads talking about the CMOS battery, could it be that as well? The system doesn't seem to forget the date and time with the power disconnected for some time, so it doesn't seem to be that low. However I have removed it to also reset the bios.
It seems like an hardware problem, since it shuts down suddenly. The fact that it is only if I start windows makes me think there's some problem with the SSD maybe. Is the SSD bad?
System specs:
Event Viewer:
When it does shutdown, sometimes it is not able to boot back up right away. Sometimes it takes longer to POST, sometimes doesn't even POST. If it does POST, normally it just shuts back down some seconds after windows booted or even during boot, and keeps that boot loop. I need to keep the pc off for some minutes for it to be able to boot again. On the january 1st and 3rd it actually did boot successfully right after like nothing happened. However, if I boot into the bios, the pc does not shutdown and just stays there.
I was not doing any heavy tasks when the sudden shutdowns occurred, on the 28th the PC was actually just idling for some time when I heard it shutdown. The PC does turn back on automatically, even after I disabled the "Power On after power loss" option in bios.
This problem started to happen some days after I installed more RAM, from 8gb (2x4gb) to 16gb (4x4gb), but I have tried running the PC without the new RAM and it still happens, so I think it was just a coincidence. I also did run memtest after that and concluded that one of my old sticks is faulty (recent problem, I remember running memtest before), but since then I remove it (running with 12gb of ram) and the problem persists. I also installed a SSD 2 years ago, so that's another upgrade that was done.
I have tried:
- full scan for malware
- checked event viewer but nothing weird seems to happen before
- checked windows for errors with SFC and DISM
- went back to my two old sticks of ram (2x4gb)
- removed CPU overclock
- booted without the hdd and the DVD drive (still booting from SSD since it did not happen in BIOS)
- reseated RAM
- reseated the psu cables
- booted directly on the motherboard without the power button connected
- removed gpu and booted using the integrated graphics
- removed the CMOS battery to reset the bios
- went back to an older GPU driver, since I've updated the drivers recently
There are no weird noises that I can hear, temperatures are ok for everything (cpu, gpu and motherboard idling at around the 30s, 20s for the ssd and hdd). Under load, cpu and gpu get to around 50/60. Can't see any blown capacitors on the motherboard either.
Voltages also seem to be ok, +12V is always between 11,93V and 12,25V, that's the minimum and maximum I've seen.
I can't replicate the problem so it's really hard to test stuff. I still want to try booting from another disk with a fresh install and try a different power supply, but I need to do it when it starts boot looping again... I did boot from a USB stick I have here with the w10 installation and it did not shutdown there (when it was boot looping going to windows). Could it be the motherboard? CPU? I've seen on some threads talking about the CMOS battery, could it be that as well? The system doesn't seem to forget the date and time with the power disconnected for some time, so it doesn't seem to be that low. However I have removed it to also reset the bios.
It seems like an hardware problem, since it shuts down suddenly. The fact that it is only if I start windows makes me think there's some problem with the SSD maybe. Is the SSD bad?
System specs:
- Intel Core i5-4670k 3.4Ghz
- Cooler CPU Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
- ASRock Z87 Pro3
- Hyperx Fury 1600Mhz CL10 DDR3 16GB (4x4GB)
- ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II
- XFX TS550 550W 80 Plus Bronze
- Toshiba TR200 3D TLC SATA III 2.5" SSD 240GB
- Western Digital Blue 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA III
- Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Event Viewer:
- 19/12/2020 19:57:45 - The previous system shutdown on 19/12/2020 at 19:48:18 was unexpected.
- 19/12/2020 20:04:13 - The previous system shutdown on 19/12/2020 at 19:57:45 was unexpected.
- 20/12/2020 16:28:00 - The previous system shutdown on 20/12/2020 at 15:53:45 was unexpected. (bluescreen caused by tcpip.sys)
- 27/12/2020 19:52:19 - The previous system shutdown on 27/12/2020 at 19:19:17 was unexpected.
- 28/12/2020 19:58:03 - The previous system shutdown on 28/12/2020 at 19:34:08 was unexpected.
- 28/12/2020 20:01:53 - The previous system shutdown on 28/12/2020 at 20:00:34 was unexpected.
- 29/12/2020 20:10:36 - The previous system shutdown on 29/12/2020 at 20:10:21 was unexpected.
- 31/12/2020 21:12:26 - The previous system shutdown on 31/12/2020 at 20:12:51 was unexpected. (a lot of times in a row)
- 01/01/2021 19:49:12 - The previous system shutdown on 01/01/2021 at 19:37:44 was unexpected.
- 02/01/2021 17:03:15 - The previous system shutdown on 02/01/2021 at 16:45:51 was unexpected. (wrong, it was like at 17:02) (4 times in a row)
- 02/01/2021 19:21:42 - The previous system shutdown on 02/01/2021 at 19:20:07 was unexpected.
- 03/01/2021 19:39:34 - The previous system shutdown on 03/01/2021 at 19:37:56 was unexpected.