Inconsistent computer crashes (restarts) when playing games.

SimpinAintEasy · March 23, 2019

The issue occurs when playing games, not necessarily under heavy load, but I believe it has always happened when playing games. I could be playing a game for hours multiple days in a row with no issues then suddenly it will shut down and restart, or i could be playing for 5 minutes after turning it on and it could happen. Sometimes when it restarts it will give the ASUS power surge protection message, sometimes it will just reboot with no message (outside of the event viewer). The build is about 6-7 years old, I've replaced the Mobo at one point a few years ago because I had an ASRock board whos PCI slot that had funky voltage and killed an old GPU I had (also since replaced).

My specs are:
CPU: 3570k (liquid cooled but not OC'd)
GPU: 980 ti (liquid cooled)
Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V (Bios version: 2104)
RAM: 2 sticks of 4GB DDR3 @1600mhz
Storage: 2SSD, 1tb HDD
PSU: CoolMaster V850 80PLUS Gold (Original) and FOCUS Plus 750 Gold (Replacement)
Notes: I am running a dual monitor set up on some older monitors

I've had this issue for a few months and have spent the entire time trying to trouble shoot it, I'm at the point where I'm exhausted trying to figure out the issue and I don't have much money to keep replacing every single part in hopes that it fixes it. A list of some of the solutions I've tried (probably not all):

Replacing the PSU
Changing which socket on my surge protector the PSU is plugged into
Memtest, CPU test, Stress tests (has never crashed during a stress test)
Rearranging the radiators to reduce temps (reduced frequency of crashes at one point but still present)
Disabling ASUS surge protection in bios
Re-seating RAM
Booting with one stick of RAM (tested both sticks, both still crash and at an increased frequency)
Re-seating basically everything but the CPU
Making sure all my drivers were up to date
Touching the chipset/bridge while it was running to make sure it wasn't shorting out
ASUS onboard MemOK! to test all RAM configurations
Unplugging one of my monitors
Yelling at it

I know it isn't temperature related (at least anymore) because I monitor the temps constantly now and they never reach within 20 degrees of the danger zone. When I first replaced the PSU I had a pretty bad issue that seemed to just go away for no real reason, when I first turned on it would the DRAM_Led would turn red then it would reboot, then it would get past that and go to the VGA_Led and reboot, then the Boot_Led and reboot and it would seem to randomly pick one that it could crash on. So I started re-seating the RAM again (a few times) and eventually it booted normally and was back to its normal state where it would crash inconsistently during games.
When I tested the ram and the sockets, I tried each stick individually and even tried running them in a different docket than I was using to make sure it wasn't just the socket and the crashes were much more frequent. I've obviously checked every power cord and double and triple checked them.
That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I've tried more things, but like I said, it's been a few months I've been working on this issue. I'm at the point where I am exhausted just thinking about troubleshooting, the next step I have planned it to purchase some new RAM and try it out but from the prices I was looking on line they are much more expensive than when I bought them originally, and I'm dreading the chances it could be my mobo or my GPU. If it my mobo I almost feel like I might as well start a new build. But that's all, I feel pretty defeated so any new perspective, help or insight anybody could give me would be greatly appreciated as I can't really afford to just replace parts willy-nilly at this point.

SimpinAintEasy · March 24, 2019

A little update on this, I ran Heaven extreme benchmark yesterday (twice) and it crashed almost immediately both times. But today I have ran it for over an hour with GPU-Z open and have yet to get it to crash. Kind of frustrating.

SimpinAintEasy · March 28, 2019

Figured I would come back here and update it now that I am almost certain what the issue is. My 980 ti is dead. Among other things, I ran a 660 in heaven over night and didn't get any crashes after trying everything under the sun to fix the 980ti. So that eliminated the PCIE slot, and I also ran HD graphics in heaven and got no crashes so that eliminates the mobo.