Is my PSU enough?

[Road Hosue]

Hi All,

 

I need some help with figuring out sudden shutdowns of my PC while gaming. (Also, sometimes there is recognizable stutters while playing low end games like League of legends)

I picked up my PC parts in hopes of building a new PC last year and below are the parts.

 

MOBO -- ASUS ROG STRIX Z370G Gaming (non wifi one) mATX

CPU -- Intel Core i7 8700K (no overclocking, HT enabled) -- Windows task manager shows the CPU is running at 4.3 GHz

Cooler -- Cooler Master Hyper T4

RAM -- Corsair Vengeance DDR4 2400MHz -- 2x4GB (Initial) 2x8GB(later, cause wanted to run some server VMs) - C16 (If it helps) XMP is disabled

SSD - Samsung 970 EVO M.2 (256 GB for OS), Samsung 860 EVO (256 GB through SATA for Games)

HDD - Seagate Barracuda 2TB (Recently bought as upgrade 5400RPM), Seagate Barracuda 1TB ( 5400RPM), Seagate Barracuda 500 (7200RPM, on the verge of dying)

Graphics Card - MSI VENTUS XS RTX 2060

Fans -- 4x 120mm case fans

Case -- Corsair Carbide SPEC03

 

Now for the PSU I cannibalised my old PC and took the Corsair VS550 bought around 4 years back.

 

Whenever I play League of Legends for longer periods (like 2-3 hours at a time), the PC starts to stutter notably during gameplay and the stutters continue in the desktop where I can see the mouse skip some movements. After a restart this gets fixed.

 

While playing AAA titles like Metro Exodus or Control without RTX ON, its working fine but with RTX ON, the PC shuts down after a while (around 45 minutes of gameplay) and restarts itself.

I also noticed that when I play with some of the setting that might put more stress on the graphics card, like for example in Control I turned DLSS off, MSAA 4x on and RTX on with render resolution at 1920x1080. As soon as i exit the setting to return to the game, the PC shuts off, I saw similar behaviour in Metro exodus as well.

 

I also tried getting the Temperatures logged during the shutdowns and I noticed they were all within good range like GPU was 72 C.(Forgot to capture CPU temp but I saw it in MSI OSD as around 60-70 C).

 

 

Could this be due to PSU not able to provide enough power in both cases (Shutdown and Stutters) ? or could this be GPU or CPU ? 

 

Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

Note: Sample of video stutters in below youtube video ( after 3:54 mark)

 

[Juular]

Impossible to say, that could be GPU itself too, or maybe RAM. You need a different PSU to check this PC with it.

[Road Hosue]

OK Guys. An update. I am still facing issues of PC restarting when I crank up the settings in Control (game) especially when I increase render resolution and RTX settings. The GPU and CPU are not too hot (because I am from hottest part of India) but around a 72 Celsius for GPU and 60-70 Celsius for CPU. Compared to Assassins Creed Odyssey, where I crank up the settings to Ultra and I dint have any problems except occasional FPS drops below 60. And the temps are too high like GPU at 80+ Celsius yet no random restarts in that game. I even remember playing BF 5 with full setting and RTX on with no problems of random shutdowns. I only faced the restarts with Control and Metro exodus as I remember. But even Metro Exodus stopped with the restart issue once after a patch update ( at least that's what I feel like).

[Juular]

See, this PSU really isn't very appropriate for this GPU, but, it could be not PSU related. You need to get a different PSU to check that. You can as well just replace this PSU with better one anyway and see if this would fix your problem.

[Road Hosue]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am still trying different options to pinpointing the problem before I spend for a 750w psu (which might become obsolete if I decide to go a bit higher end GPU in a couple of years).

 

Couple of things I tried and noticed

 

1. I cranked up the GPU fans to 100% and underclocked the GPU ram -500mhz, I see the shutdowns are reduced a bit but shutdowns still happen but not as soon as I change the settings which was what's happening before.

2. I was able to replicate the issue with Assassin's creed syndicate when I turned the resolution up from 1080P to 4K (this game allows me eventhough my monitor is 1080P). As soon as I save the setting, PC shuts down. Before the fan and ram setting in point 1, the game shutdown PC even for 1440p but after above setting, it doesnt crash for 1440p but for 4K. 

 

I am convinced that the issue is mostly heat related but it still makes me wonder about PSU as the shutdowns are very immediate after I change settings in the game as well. I also guess the issue could be with the graphics card itself that it is a defective one. But I cant claim warranty without a solid way of replicating the issue without it happening in all games. Its a bit frustrating that the issue crashes the whole PC instead of the game alone.

[Road Hosue]

Thanks guys.

 

Problem Fixed with New PSU (CX 750 Grey). I was very sure that a lot of the behaviors over the past couple of months that I observed were indicative of the old Power Supply (VS 550 Orange) either not up to the mark for my build or its nearing its end (Almost 5 years in use).

 I still had my doubts on the Graphics card itself but thank goodness it isnt...

 

The stutters stopped, the reboots during heavy gaming stopped. I will do a couple of stress tests to make sure its all good. Will post if I find anything unusual comes up . 

 

Note: I was actually going for CX 650 but they didnt have it in stock, they had the Modular version of CX650M for $15 more than non modular version but i heard that the M version has an inferior PSU topology than the non M version so I spent $30 more than 650 to get the 750. CX 750 came around $100.

 

I did learn a lot about overclocking (undervolting especially to bring down temps), also a lot about power supplies especially.

 

I guess the answer to my question is "NO".