Question System suddenly shuts down, will not power up until cycle power on PSU

smithchrism

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Aug 2, 2013
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Hi everyone,

I built an AMD based system this last November or so (some parts below). I added a new vid card to it in December. We are coming up on the end of January and I haven't had a problem with this system until 3-4 days ago.

I have seen, twice now, the system suddenly shuts down. No warning or anything, it just turns off. When this happens, hitting the power button on the case doesn't bring the system back up. One side of my case has a clear panel so I can look into the system. My memory and mobo both have RGB lights on them. The RGB is still lit up indicating there is some sort of power being sent to the system. However, no fans or anything else are up and running.

Each time this has happened, I've had to turn the power off on my PSU, waited a good 5+ seconds, and then flipped the power back on. Now the power button on the case works and I can power my system back up. Each time this happened, the system came up just fine with nothing to indicate there was any sort of a problem.

The first time this happened (this past weekend) I had basically left my system up all day long. I did some stuff during the morning hours, left the house but left the system running idle, and came back 3-4 hours later to play some games. I had been playing for a while and this happened. Hoping this was a one time occurrence, I basically put it out of my mind. But, it happened again last night. This time, the system wasn't up for very long but I was playing a game when it happened.

Since it's a newer system, I've run various utilities to watch heat on my various components and the system as a whole. Based on the results I'm seeing, I don't think this is a heat issue but I'll keep monitoring for just in case.

Any thoughts on what could be causing this? My gut says it's a PSU problem and I'm considering getting a new one although the one I have now is only 3-4 years old. What bugs me is when I do this there is no indication of any kind of what the problem is. My mobo, an Asus, has a q-code readout on the mobo which shows various status codes while the system is running. During these two incidents, the q-code display shows nothing. There is currently no PC speaker on the system. I assume my mobo has a connection for one. If I get a speaker, will some kind of code get beeped out to me?

Any thoughts on this are appreciated.

My setup:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 7900x CPU w/Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 cooler
  • Asus ROG Strix x670E-E Gaming Wifi
  • 32 Gigs (2 x 16GB) G.Skill Trident Z5 New RGB Series F5-6000J3636F16GX2-TZ5NR
  • AMD Reference 7900 XTX Vid card
  • Seasonic PRIME PX-850, 850W 80+ Platinum PSU
  • Creative Labs Sound Blaster AE-9
Respectfully,

Chris Smith
 
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My gut says it's a PSU problem and I'm considering getting a new one although the one I have now is only 3-4 years old.
check the manufacturer warranty information.
Seasonic is a rather respectable brand with a lot of higher quality hardware.
if this is a higher-end model then it should still be covered.

they would offer an RMA option and will test the power supply.
if a malfunction has occurred they would replace the model.

of course though this is a last resort option if no other at-home fix can be implemented.
 
Check your bios settings to see if you have any power saving/state enabled. Try disabling those. Knowing your psu wattage and model could be helpful. You could also try basic troubleshooting like using one stick of ram at a time to see if the problem persists with each separate stick. That way you can rule them out.
 

smithchrism

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Aug 2, 2013
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Thanks for offering to help fellas!

I updated my specs in my original post to include the requested information.

As far as BIOS and driver information is concerned, I will say the BIOS, all the typical drivers (video, audio, etc.), and chipset drivers are up to date. After the last outage, I got to looking around the system and entered Asus' utility, Armory Crate. It showed some drivers and such I'm not sure what they are for. But, it said they were out of date. I guess some of them are for Auro (RGB lighting) and other such stuff. I downloaded and installed the latest versions so everything should be at the latest/greatest level now.

I got the PSU in 2018. Seasonic has a 12 year warranty on it. I may use this as an excuse to get a new one though, one with the new plug type for the next generation graphics cards (even though I don't need it now thanks to the 7900 XTX) and has 1000 Watts though I don't need that now as well.

As far as BIOS settings, I looked but will go back and look again. I didn't have an issue for a month+ so I doubt the BIOS settings are an issue with one possible exception. I'm paranoid about heat even though I'm not seeing issues. I went into the BIOS and lowered the maximum temp the CPU can run at. For this CPU, it was set to 95F by default. I lowered it to 93F. I did that about the same time this issue started. I can't imagine why this would be a problem (unless the BIOS has a bug in it or something); I'm not making things worse by overclocking or anything I'm actually making things "better" with this setting. I may go back and reset that to default and see what happens.

I'm going to hold out some slim hope the drivers Armory Crate updated will resolve this problem but I'm not going to hold my breath. I didn't think about taking a stick of memory out and seeing if that fixes things. If this happens again, I'll start down that basic trouble shooting path and run the system with just one stick of memory and see if that solves the problem.

The bad thing is this problem up to this point is a bit intermittent. It'll be tough to tell what the problem is and when/if it is fixed.

Any other thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Chris Smith