ChrisLoudon

Lol, agreed

It is possible but something that I haven't seen or had happen to me. Do you have the ability to swap things out with good 'known working' hardware to try and diagnose the fault? What happens when you press the power button?

That's doubtful buddy. The other way round is possible but still unlikely. As Shrimpbrime suggested, more likely the PSU.

You should be fine for a PLEX server with the Atom. I recall reading somewhere that PLEX recommend a CPU passmark score of over 2000 to do the job so if you don't need to spend a penny then you're onto a winner. If you find the CPU starts to show its age you could always chuck a half decent GPU in the spare PCI slot and offload the transcoding to that.

MEMTEST Prime95 (blend) Furmark 3DMark (Port Royal for RT Stuff) A nice touch would be to provide a document stating you've run some or all of these for 12/24hrs with no issues.

Hi buddy, Windows task manager is actually the best thing to use as it lists all running processes AND reports on which ones are using CPU and GPU recourses. GPUZ or HWinfo will just tell you that your GPU is being used but won't tell you by what.

Don't bother with either. There's not a snowballs chance in hell of getting one at MSRP. I'm after a 3080 or even the 3080ti if / when it gets released but I've resided myself to the fact it aint gonna happen this year.

Hi buddy, As far as i can remember, 7th gen Intel chips will work on Intel's Z170 and 270 chipsets but NOT Z390.... Not 100% sure on that but I just checked the CPU support list on a few mobos and it seems to point to that conclusion. The issue you are going to have is its not a buyers market right now AND older hardware can be bloody expensive even out with a silicon shortage. I was trying to get my hands on a Gbyte Z170n Gaming 5 board which is quite a few generations old and couldn't get a used one for any less than a brand new current gen one.

What part of task manager is reporting disk usage at 100% is is this part? Click on The 'Disk' column and it will reorder, that might point to the offending process. Also, don't have your boot (Windows) drive on a mechanical disk, always use an SSD. Even an old 2.5" sata drive would do but use an NVMe if you can.

I'd have gone for that but its not happening 'in-game'

Very strange! I'd install another game or 2 and see if you can replicate the issue although tbh I'd still be as stumped and have little to offer past that. If it did it 'in-game' i'd defo say its a faulty GPU. A few things to try. 1. Remove recently installed ram and see if that has an effect. 2. Reinstall MSFS - Maybe a corrupted file or install 3. Fresh install or reset of Windows - Rules out most software issues as you'll have a nice clean and up-to-date OS without all the crap that's been gumming gup the works over the years.

Does it do this when playing the game or just when at a loading screen? Does it do this with ALL games?

I forgot to say, if you see a warning or error in the System logs referring to nvlddmkm that has stopped responding then its pointing to an Nvidia driver crash. Alternatively if you see entries in the 'Application' logs whinging about a GTAV.exe or COD.exe (probably not accurate) or errors or warning about direct x then it almost certainly software.

type 'computer management' into your search bar see pic below. Don't worry about the vast majority of warning or errors as they are either normal or nothing to worry about. Right click on the 'Application' and 'System' text to the left and click 'clear'. Start the game and take note of the rough time it throws a wobbler then go back into the logs and take a loot at around that time to see if there is anything of interst. I'd seriously recommend a Windows reinstall or even a reset. Settings > Update & Security > Recovery >

What do you have planned for the rest of the system? If you are upgrading the CPU / Mobo, why not choose a CPU with an iGPU negating the need for a dedicated GPU.