PC shuts down

[9.JG52 Meyer]

Hello all

I have a problem with my pc that hopefully the community here can help with.

Now then I have been gaming for years and have never encountered this. What happens is my pc shuts down without warning after about 15 mins of playing Dcs whether I'm online or in single mode training flights etc.

There's no warning it just switches off and I have to hard reboot. After looking on Google the main culprit seems to be that my psi is either not enough of its on its way out its a 650 watt one. My specs quickly are I5 CPU quad core ,8 gig ram, nv 780 gtx GPU . I have a corsair h60 water cooler in the machine . The pc only shuts off when playing Dcs it never does this for any other game . Il2 clod, elite dangerous ,total war games ,sh4 or 5 etc.

Any ideas or advice greatly appreciated

Thanks.

[Devrim]

When playing DCS, temperature values of my PC goes up generally. If your PC shuts down "suddenly", I guess you have a overheating issue.

 

So, I suggest you to monitor CPU and GPU temperatures, and check your cooling system.

[Cibit]

Maybe try testing your RAM

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/diagnosing-memory-problems-on-your-computer

 

Most PSU issues I have personaly had normally result in BSOD

[Basher54321]

Dodgy RAM can also cause BSODs, and a strained PSU can also cause the PC to restart.

 

Am also using a GTX 780 but with a 750W PSU, Is your GPU or CPU overclocked?

 

The 780 will be drawing a relatively large amount of power (compared to your other games) if you are running on high settings - have you tried lowering the graphics settings at all? - or even in the NVIDIA control panel if you use that?

 

In regards to temperatures you can check these with various programs when running games - however GPUs will automatically cut themselves back if they go over a temp threshold if you haven't changed the default curves.

[9.JG52 Meyer]

Thanks for the replies fellas you have all given me some ideas to try.My GPU nor CPU are overclocked. I will try to start the process of elimination

[harm_]

I had the same symptoms that you are having Meyer, until the PSU just stopped working altogether. We share the same specs except for the processor, mine is an i7.

 

A new PSU solved the problem so far.

 

By the way I'm (9/zg26 Hipper) ;)

[EtherealN]

One thing you could see about trying (depending on your level of confidence with overclocking): UNDERCLOCK the CPU and GPU. The idea there is to make them "top out" at a lower power draw than is common.

 

If it works fine at that point, but restarts on standard, you've got a fairly solid case for either the PSU or the mobo power caps being on their last legs (most likely candidate would be the PSU).

 

However, important in underclocking diagnostically in this is that it is not enough to simply lower multipliers etcetera, you also want to ensure that you find a stable underclock that does involve lowered voltages etcetera, to make really certain that you really is dawing less power than normal.

 

Another possibility, depending on your exact CPU and mobo chipset ("i5 quad core" unfortunately doesn't give enough details on that), is to switch the game over to using the integrated graphics and then try running the game. Obviously it will probably not be "playable", but this is something you should be able to do without much fiddling at all. Again the idea is to try to ensure reduced power draw (through not using the GPU). If that works, it would be either PSU or Graphics Card - but the latter should cause BSOD, not restart/shutdown, meaning that we again make a fairly good case for the PSU.

 

When playing DCS, temperature values of my PC goes up generally. If your PC shuts down "suddenly", I guess you have a overheating issue.

 

So, I suggest you to monitor CPU and GPU temperatures, and check your cooling system.

 

His computer and graphics card should throttle themselves if temperature was the issue (unless this has been turned off on purpose in bios/driver), and end result should be a BSOD, not a shutdown.

[ronbo613]

Check your PSU.

 

You said you had a 650w power supply, is it a brand name PSU? The output quality of power supplies, regardless of the stated output, varies widely. Also, if your PSU is older or has been heavily used, it is not going to run at 100% output.

 

I would agree with EtherealN, overheating components will usually result in a BSOD, not a shutdown.

[EtherealN]

You said you had a 650w power supply, is it a brand name PSU? The output quality of power supplies, regardless of the stated output, varies widely. Also, if your PSU is older or has been heavily used, it is not going to run at 100% output.

 

I'll add one note as well: wattage for PSU's is the total they can produce across all rails/voltages etc.

 

Having components that "only" want 400W does not necessarily mean a 650W PSU can supply it, if they all want the same voltages etc. (This is one of the reasons why, when giving build advice, I always caution against going cheap on power supplies. Purchasing a 100-150€ PSU might seem excessive when there are 40€ PSU's out there with the same rating, but through a lot of frustration and tears I've learned to respect the PSU decision. (And getting an upmarket one is usually fairly fine anyway, since mine came with a 7 year warranty, meaning it'll serve multiple computers without going out of warranty.))