Please help. PC restarts when playing any game

bolo_bokn

bolo_bokn

bolo_bokn

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25 Jan 2016
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23
Hey guys,

I've had my gaming PC bough from Overclockers since December 2014, and its been working great. However, I upgraded the RAM a few days back and ever since, playing any games on it makes my PC completely restart. It's not been working for days now and I really need some help/advice.

I can browse the internet and do anything but play games as normal, but as soon as I load a game and load an "in-game" scene e.g. a stage in Dirt Rally, the game will work for about 10-20 seconds and then it completely restarts (not even just a crash to desktop).

This error only started to happen after I upgraded my RAM from Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB)

to: Corsair Vengeance Pro Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2400Mhz.

My motherboard has 4 slots on it, and I directly replaced this RAM into the same slots. When loading up my PC, it all says it is fine and that the RAM is there.

I thought the RAM could be to blame for some reason (no idea why), so I then tested out my old RAM - unfortunately the PC still now completely restarts, even with my original RAM in.

The other thing I did was buy some compressed air to give my PC a clean (it had been over 2 years gathering internal dust). So I cleaned all the parts that needed it (PSU, GPU and others).

Is it possible that I have actually done more damage than good using this compressed air - could my GPU or PSU be damaged? The reason I say this is that when the computer is restarting in-game, the GPU and PSU fans both immediately stop - I read online that this could be a sign of failure. The thing is I have a GTX 780 and a Corsair 600W PSU which are both very good parts and were working flawlessly until I used the compressed air and changed the RAM.

Could I have done something to make the GPU, PSU or other part fail? It seems directly related to GPU load, as it is only happening in game.

When just browsing the internet and not in-game, both the PSU and GPU fans appear to be working fine.

How can I find out what is causing this problem, and how can I fix it? If anyone can help, I will be massively appreciative.

Cheers!



Full PC spec:



"Titan 420i Tanto" Intel Core i7 4770K @ 4.1GHz Overclocked

Haswell Quad Core Gaming PC

GX-182-GW Gainward GeForce GTX 780 Phantom 3072MB GDDR5

FS-187-OE No Sound Card Upgrade

HD-255-SE Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM

HD-168-SA Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic -

CA-129-NX NZXT Phantom 530 Full Tower Gaming Case - Black

SW-165-MS Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614)

FS-320-OE 24 MONTH WARRANTY - COLLECT & RETURN

XX-003-OP Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days

CP-473-IN Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor -

MB-438-GI Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard

HS-100-AK Akasa AK-CC4013EP01 Nero 3 V2 Premier CPU Cooler

CD-003-OK OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

MY-094-KS Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 - replaced with Corsair Vengeance Pro Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2400Mhz

CA-048-CS Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
 
Thanks for the response, I didn't change anything and it was just a straight swap, so you could be on to something. How do I set the XMP profile? I know how to get to the BIOS.
 
Thanks Hodders.

I've tried changing the RAM speed to what was advertised on the new RAM (2400hz). Maybe that will work.

I tested the old RAM already and I still get the same error.

How can I load memtest? It seems more complicated that just a download-install procedure.

Thanks.
 
bolo_bokn said:
Thanks for the response, I didn't change anything and it was just a straight swap, so you could be on to something. How do I set the XMP profile? I know how to get to the BIOS.
Click to expand...

Press F2 to bring up the classic BIOS which is simpler to look at and navigate.

One of the pages is advanced memory.

Near the top is a option to set xmp, usually you might have two profiles to set.

One the correct speed and timings.

The other maybe slightly reduced.

Set one of the profiles.

Save and exit the BIOS.
 
I had similar isses with a new build a few months back - everything was fine until I started gaming - after about 20 minutes the PC would restart - turned out it was a faulty PSU...
 
When you used the compressed air, was the PC switched on at the time?

If it was off, once you had sprayed it, how long did you wait to then turn the PC back on?
Because of the way compressed air is compressed, it can come out of the can very cold, and the difference in temperature between that and a warm component can cause solder to fracture, or components to fail.

I would say there are four options for causes of the fault.

1) RAM fault - new ram is faulty, test with memtest to see. This is less likely as the fault still appears after refitting old ram.

2) RAM BIOS settings are not correct - need to make sure ram timings and possibly voltages are set correctly. Doesn't explain the old ram fault unless swapping over has screwed up the BIOS settings so they are wrong for even the old ram.

3) GPU fault - other than getting another one, or borrowing from a friend to test, difficult to know.

4) PSU fault - again, need to borrow one to test. It is possible for the PSU to work ok in normal use, but when a game starts the power draw by the GPU etc is more than the failing PSU can handle which then causes reboot.

One thing you can do is to disable the auto restart on system failure, which should then take you to a blue screen error rather than an unhelpful restart.
If you are still on 8.1, follow this to disable it. Once you do this, cause the error and then post the details of the blue screen.
 
If the IMC is struggling with 8GB modules at 2400MHz it may still pass memtest but crash in demanding applications - try running the RAM at 1600MHz for a bit and see if it still restarts.
 
El_Watcher said:
When you used the compressed air, was the PC switched on at the time?

If it was off, once you had sprayed it, how long did you wait to then turn the PC back on?
Because of the way compressed air is compressed, it can come out of the can very cold, and the difference in temperature between that and a warm component can cause solder to fracture, or components to fail.

I would say there are four options for causes of the fault.

1) RAM fault - new ram is faulty, test with memtest to see. This is less likely as the fault still appears after refitting old ram.

2) RAM BIOS settings are not correct - need to make sure ram timings and possibly voltages are set correctly. Doesn't explain the old ram fault unless swapping over has screwed up the BIOS settings so they are wrong for even the old ram.

3) GPU fault - other than getting another one, or borrowing from a friend to test, difficult to know.

4) PSU fault - again, need to borrow one to test. It is possible for the PSU to work ok in normal use, but when a game starts the power draw by the GPU etc is more than the failing PSU can handle which then causes reboot.

One thing you can do is to disable the auto restart on system failure, which should then take you to a blue screen error rather than an unhelpful restart.
If you are still on 8.1, follow this to disable it. Once you do this, cause the error and then post the details of the blue screen.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed answer.

Yes the PC was off. I didn't wait to turn it back on really - I wasn't aware of this needing to be done. I just cleaned the inside, which took probably around 15 minutes, replaced the RAM, then closed it up again. I did notice that the can was very cold when I was using it, but this is normal?

I just used memtest for the last 3 hours, and I got no faults with the new RAM. 0 errors.

If I have done damage to a part via using the compressed air, then how could I tell? Pretty annoying that I could have damaged something by wanting to actually clean it and take better care of the PC. It sounds like i've basically gone out of my way to damage my PC.

Anything I can do apart from replace GPU/PSU and test it? Could it be worse - could I have done something to my motherboard?

Thanks again for the help and information.
 
Ok, I just disabled the automatic restart and tried again, but for some reason it still restarted without warning! No blue screen. Just the same as when it was enabled. Why could this be?

I am able to view the System Log in "Event Viewer", but i'm not entirely sure what I am looking for in regards to a specific error. Here is an image of what is displayed at present.

https://i.imgsafe.org/df7ff20.png


The "Critical" message is titled "Event 41, Kernel-Power"message reads: 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?
 
From the fact it is not blue screening, that would tend to remove the RAM as a culprit, and in theory the GPU as well.
I would say the PSU is the most likely culprit and the only way to tell is to buy a new one, or borrow a friends one to test.

I suppose there may also be a possibility that when you changed the RAM, you damaged the motherboard with static, but that is less likely.

I am not saying you definitely killed it with the compressed air, but you may have been unlucky that there was still a cold spot on a component when you powered up again.
 
No I haven't got a spare PSU to test unfortunately. Surely it isn't a coincidence that if the PSU has failed the same day that I used some compressed air on it, no?

As I mentioned before, when the computer restarts, the GPU and PSU fans both immediately stop, then start again when it has restarted.

I'd hate to go and buy a new PSU and then have this not even fixed properly. That, and also the fact that I haven't replaced a PSU before, and my track record of replacing computer parts is now 100% failure already. Something else would probably fail if I did this...
 
bolo_bokn said:
Surely it isn't a coincidence that if the PSU has failed the same day that I used some compressed air on it, no?
Click to expand...

Stranger things have happened.

All you can do short of replacing the PSU is double check all the connectors are in firmly (PSU ones really) in case you knocked anything while you were poking around.

You could inspect the motherboard with a magnifying glass/loupe but that's more work than swapping the PSU tbh.

Stealthploit said:
or high temps
Click to expand...

Er, check this first (can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet :o)
 
Uh? 3v on the 12v rail?!?!

There's your problem!

Could be the program reading it wrong but those voltages look all over the place, check what they say in the BIOS? Should be within 10%+/- of the value.
 
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