Frustrating reboot issues.

Khorvos · 27 May 2014 at 11:26

Hello; not sure if this is the correct spot.. If not I apologies in advance but figured I'd try here and see if anyone can offer me any insight before I throw in the towel and pay someone to look at my issue....

So what happens is; I'll be in the middle of a game.. Whether it's Diablo III, Assasin's Creed IV, or WatchDog and my system will just reboot itself... No prior graphics crash, or any warnings whatsoever, it'll just reboot back to log in.

I'm running CPUID H/W monitor so I can see my CPU gets no higher than 51C (Not bothered trying to Over clock yet), and my Graphics card never gets above 80C maximum.

My system spec is as follows:
NZXT PHANTOM 630 BLACK FT CASE
Intel i7 - 4770K running at stock clock speed at the moment.
ASUS Maximus VI Hero motherboard.
16GBCorsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black Low Profile, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V
GeForce GTX780
Corsair RM1000 1000W FGold PSU
3TB SEAGATE ST3000DM001 SATA3
500GB SSung 840 EVO SSD Basic

O/S wise I thought I'd give Windows 8.1 a go..

I've tried re-seating my components, I've tried running stress tests against the hardware, and there's nothing useful in the event log viewer... Just the unhelpful:

"The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Any ideas/suggestions on how to proceed with this from a diagnostic perspective would be appreciated... Could it for instance be a driver issue? As in sound drivers? I AM using the MoBo sound capabilities.. Just speculating I guess.

Any help would be much appreciated, and happy to post additional info if it helps..

Khorvos · 27 May 2014 at 11:47

I am tempted in all honesty to run a complete OS re-install.

Danny75 · 27 May 2014 at 11:49

Khorvos said:
I've tried re-seating my components

Did that include re-seating the CPU?

Khorvos · 27 May 2014 at 11:57

In all honesty no it didn't include the CPU, but that's buried under a Noctua and I was very careful when I initially installed the CPU anyway... Also given the design of the socket it would seem pretty hard (imo) to mess that bit up..

Not saying its impossible though *shrugs*.

Anyhow I've decided I'll go for a complete re-install just to eliminate silly driver based issues and/or any other potential software conflict...

That way I can be fairly confident it IS h/w related... Least then I can find a failing component and get it replaced under warranty!

Danny75 · 27 May 2014 at 12:01

Khorvos said:
In all honesty no it didn't include the CPU, but that's buried under a Noctua and I was very careful when I initially installed the CPU anyway... Also given the design of the socket it would seem pretty hard (imo) to mess that bit up.. Not saying its impossible though *shrugs*.

I agree it's unlikely. It did also solve a freeze/reboot issue for me one time. CPU wasn't even getting over 60C, so maybe not perfect connection with the pins was causing it in certain scenarios. Just something else to eliminate.

Khorvos said:
Anyhow I've decided I'll go for a complete re-install just to eliminate silly driver based issues and/or any other potential software conflict...

That way I can be fairly confident it IS h/w related... Least then I can find a failing component and get it replaced under warranty!

Ok cool, good luck. Please keep us posted.

wazza300 · 27 May 2014 at 12:43

could be memory related,setting/voltage

tried with and without xmp? see if it reboots,looked in event viewer see if any errors/warnings are listed?

also try with 1.55 to 1.65v dram voltage

Khorvos · 27 May 2014 at 15:09

Just wrapping up my re-install... WatchDog (My testing game of choice) will be finished in 2 minutes too...

Once I've tried running that game and see if I last more than 5 minutes... I'll know whether or not I need to move on to hardware again...

Will look into the memory next should I continue to have issues

Cheers.

Khorvos · 4 Jun 2014 at 14:26

So, just for the sake of completeness.. I ran out of time/energy to continue trouble shooting my rig.. I'd covered off pretty much all the obvious.. So gave it over to a shop for a diagnostic.. (Was only 35 quid).

They finally tracked it down to the PSU.. It isn't immediately obvious, but a sharp "tap" will cause it to reboot.. And naturally when it was getting warm it was rebooting..

My guess, is a dry joint somewhere in the PSU..

Will be taking it back tomorrow as its still under warranty and getting it replaced.

Thanks for the suggestions/replies to this.