GPU Load shutting down PC instantly

[Jacob29]

During GPU intensive games (very rarely does this happen, only in very specific circumstances it seems), my PC will shut down, completely, and instantly. As if there was a power cut. Monitors will remain powered however, and are using the same cable extension.

The only way I can then turn my machine back on, is by unplugging my PSU, waiting or holding down the power button (if this even does anything), and then turning it back on.

It seems to then reset the BIOS (as it turns on, doesn't display anything, turns off, back on and its fine).

There is then seemingly no side effect after this.

 

I have only had this happen in two games, one of them was in Total War Warhammer 2, in an underpass ambush campaign select screen, where you choose to accept, decline, autoresolve, the battle. If I leave it on there it will happen. No other method seems to cause this to happen.

And recently in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, in the first jungle level. However I could not recreate this one as reliably as the Total War campaign one, which was, up until a few weeks ago, very reliably causing it.

 

I was able to temporarily resolve the issue by FPS locking the game so the GPU didn't 100%. Perhaps unrelated to what's actually causing the issue but it worked.

 

I cannot recreate he issue using benchmarking software such as p95 and furmark or memtest.

Windows has been reinstalled.

Temps do not climb too high, and while this is anecdotal of me simply looking at HWInfo when this happened, I did not see any sudden voltage change in the CPU or GPU, just before this occured.

I have video footage if you would like this provided.

 

I am mainly concerned over what would even cause this, as it only happen in GPU intentive areas, but I do not see how a GPU failing, or crashing, would take the entire system with it, and also causing it not to boot unless the power is cycled from the machine...

 

Here is my machine --

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor	£147.90 @ Amazon UK
CPU Cooler	Scythe FUMA 2 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler	£50.73 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL14 Memory	£132.52 @ Newegg UK
Storage	Sabrent Rocket 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	£129.99 @ Amazon UK
Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB SC Black Edition Video Card
Case	Phanteks Eclipse P400A Digital ATX Mid Tower Case	£80.26 @ Ebuyer
Power Supply	XFX XTR 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£541.40
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-22 01:07 BST+0100

I am on BIOS F50a. But this also occured on the previous BIOS.

[ki8aras]

it seems like an inability of your power supply to keep up with the power demands of the system, maybe try lowering the power limit of the gpu and see it that helps

[Jacob29]

9 hours ago, ki8aras said:

it seems like an inability of your power supply to keep up with the power demands of the system, maybe try lowering the power limit of the gpu and see it that helps

Can certainly give it a go.

 

But I am not too sure why this would not happen when running say, FurMark.

 

If it was a power limit issue, surely a benchmark should trip it fairly reliably, rather than a certain point in a video game?

 

If it was a power limit isue that would explain why limiting FPS could resolve it though,

 

Also my psu SHOULD have decent headroom, isn't that old.. (5 years ish?) and is of high quality (bought it specifically beacuse of how well it did on johnnyguru)

[ki8aras]

different applications stress different parts of the gpu so it wouldnt surprise me, granted i also have a 550w psu with an rx 5700xt drawing over 250w and i havent had any problems

have you overclocked your cpu or memory?

maybe its something completely unrelated to the gpu

[Jacob29]

4 hours ago, ki8aras said:

different applications stress different parts of the gpu so it wouldnt surprise me, granted i also have a 550w psu with an rx 5700xt drawing over 250w and i havent had any problems

have you overclocked your cpu or memory?

maybe its something completely unrelated to the gpu

No OC on CPU or Memory. In fact this still happens when my Memory is not on XMP so running under the 3200 Mhz.

 

Yeah I figured different parts could stress it differently, but not sure what it could be stressing that say, Furmark isn't.

 

I haven't had any problems for 2 years either, it's only very recently I have had this, kinda rare issue.

 

As I said, it has only ever happened in ONE situation in Total War Warhammer 2, it has never happened in any other situation in TWWH2, so I did not notice it.

 

SOTR is the second game to have it happen in, but i cannot get it to happen again... figures.

 

Also, it may just be me, but I can't really see how an issue with my GPU would cause my machine to completely shut down and then not turn back on. To me that would either be Mobo or PSU?

 

But hey.. PCs are strange beasts.

[ki8aras]

4 hours ago, Jacob29 said:

No OC on CPU or Memory. In fact this still happens when my Memory is not on XMP so running under the 3200 Mhz.

 

Yeah I figured different parts could stress it differently, but not sure what it could be stressing that say, Furmark isn't.

 

I haven't had any problems for 2 years either, it's only very recently I have had this, kinda rare issue.

 

As I said, it has only ever happened in ONE situation in Total War Warhammer 2, it has never happened in any other situation in TWWH2, so I did not notice it.

 

SOTR is the second game to have it happen in, but i cannot get it to happen again... figures.

 

Also, it may just be me, but I can't really see how an issue with my GPU would cause my machine to completely shut down and then not turn back on. To me that would either be Mobo or PSU?

 

But hey.. PCs are strange beasts.

maybe its a system crash because of the game?

[abde2]

I'm having the same issue here, with the exact same circumstances. I would first run a memory test like memtest86 to eliminate that, and I would also check the pinouts on your PSU and see if they are delivering the correct voltages (my system passed both of these) and now I'm in this position too. Hopefully that might help

[Jacob29]

On 6/22/2020 at 7:57 PM, ki8aras said:

maybe its a system crash because of the game?

That turns off my PC completely? and won't turn back on without being switching off the PSU for 10 seconds?

 

I dunno... I can't think what would cause that?

[Jacob29]

On 6/22/2020 at 8:44 PM, abde2 said:

I'm having the same issue here, with the exact same circumstances. I would first run a memory test like memtest86 to eliminate that, and I would also check the pinouts on your PSU and see if they are delivering the correct voltages (my system passed both of these) and now I'm in this position too. Hopefully that might help

Have indeed ran memtest86, and it came back with nothing after a full sweep.

 

Sadly I have no way of checking my pinouts... no alternative psu, nor an alternative mobo to test this with.

 

Hence I was hoping someone might be able to shed some light on what might cause a shutdown, and no possible way of turning it back on without completely clearing the power.

[Jacob29]

If it makes any difference i just ran furmark for an hour, and not a blip.

[BlackManINC]

20 minutes ago, Jacob29 said:

If it makes any difference i just ran furmark for an hour, and not a blip.

So why assume its happening because of the GPU? It could be happening for lots of reasons. 

[Jacob29]

31 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

So why assume its happening because of the GPU? It could be happening for lots of reasons. 

No assumption. In fact I had assumed it was NOT the GPU that was causing it.

But wanted to reitterate the fact that this only happens in intensive environments, but benchmarks do not replicate the issue.

[BlackManINC]

9 minutes ago, Jacob29 said:

No assumption. In fact I had assumed it was NOT the GPU that was causing it.

But wanted to reitterate the fact that this only happens in intensive environments, but benchmarks do not replicate the issue.

 

Ok, well according to the link below, you don't have the power supply they recommend for your GPU. It says 600 watts is recommended, you only have a 550w PSU. I would address that first before anything else. 

 

Link: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC Black Edition

[Jacob29]

1 hour ago, BlackManINC said:

 

Ok, well according to the link below, you don't have the power supply they recommend for your GPU. It says 600 watts is recommended, you only have a 550w PSU. I would address that first before anything else. 

 

Link: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC Black Edition

With a system with an i7....

 

I have a R5 3600 which has way less power draw. As you said "recommended" not necessary.

I have used this PC for years now, without any issue.

[BlackManINC]

2 hours ago, Jacob29 said:

With a system with an i7....

 

I have a R5 3600 which has way less power draw. As you said "recommended" not necessary.

I have used this PC for years now, without any issue.

How long have you had the power supply? What about the motherboard? 

[ki8aras]

12 hours ago, Jacob29 said:

With a system with an i7....

 

I have a R5 3600 which has way less power draw. As you said "recommended" not necessary.

I have used this PC for years now, without any issue.

i started having the same problem in fh4,aftfer some googling i found out that the issue was vsync, after turning it off it didnt bother me again so you could google the issue on the specific game that yourre having it

[Jacob29]

2 hours ago, ki8aras said:

i started having the same problem in fh4,aftfer some googling i found out that the issue was vsync, after turning it off it didnt bother me again so you could google the issue on the specific game that yourre having it

 

I have vsync turned off most of the time, and actually in the Warhammer crash, it fixed it, as it was lowering the FPS, so not being as intensive. Good idea though!

 

11 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

How long have you had the power supply? What about the motherboard? 

 

 

Just over 5 years for my PSU.

 

Just over 3 years for the mobo.

 

[BlackManINC]

7 hours ago, Jacob29 said:

 

I have vsync turned off most of the time, and actually in the Warhammer crash, it fixed it, as it was lowering the FPS, so not being as intensive. Good idea though!

 

 

 

Just over 5 years for my PSU.

 

Just over 3 years for the mobo.

 

So did disabling vsync work in your games? If not, then I'd still seriously consider replacing that power supply, it might be starting to degrade. They don't last forever in pitch perfect condition, that's why they tend to give you up to a seven year warranty for them. The fact that you didn't have any problems until now makes the power supply even more likely. And the fact is, like I said before, its wattage doesn't quite meet what is recommend for your GPU anyway. Its not a huge difference, but I still wouldn't take any chances not abiding by the specifications if you are trying to run high performance applications like video games. If you were just using it to run Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat, it'd be a different story. 

[Jacob29]

16 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

So did disabling vsync work in your games? If not, then I'd still seriously consider replacing that power supply, it might be starting to degrade. They don't last forever in pitch perfect condition, that's why they tend to give you up to a seven year warranty for them. The fact that you didn't have any problems until now makes the power supply even more likely. And the fact is, like I said before, its wattage doesn't quite meet what is recommend for your GPU anyway. Its not a huge difference, but I still wouldn't take any chances not abiding by the specifications if you are trying to run high performance applications like video games. If you were just using it to run Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat, it'd be a different story. 

Sorry, poor wording on my part.

Turning vsync on fixed it, as it was then rendering less frames, so lower usage. Was my theory anyway.

[BlackManINC]

22 minutes ago, Jacob29 said:

Sorry, poor wording on my part.

Turning vsync on fixed it, as it was then rendering less frames, so lower usage. Was my theory anyway.

I mean, that could still point to your power supply as the culprit though if you have to tell the GPU to take it easy without it crashing. Its akin to having to replace the GPU with a less powerful one to fix the crashing. This is what one guy did to "fix" it, but it turned out to be the PSU that was the real problem. Less fps, means its not working as hard which means less power delivery necessary. 

[Jacob29]

2 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

I mean, that could still point to your power supply as the culprit though if you have to tell the GPU to take it easy without it crashing. Its akin to having to replace the GPU with a less powerful one to fix the crashing. This is what one guy did to "fix" it, but it turned out to be the PSU that was the real problem. Less fps, means its not working as hard which means less power delivery necessary. 

Yeah I am currently testing the crashes with a lower power limit for the card atm, to see if it eliminates it.

[Jacob29]

Sadly even with Power Limit down to 85%, I can still have my PC do this to me.

 

I have managed to find an area in Shadow of the Tomb Raider that does it 100% reliably though, so i can test.

 

sadly, no logging software successfully records info on a crash like this, and i lose a good half a second at least of data, meaning i cannot see what directly caused it.

 

I took a video of some of the logging software and i see nothing happen.

 

Please see this video for what I mean:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z9O0ttfcfJ57JfzrT9oc4ATxMnofGs1i/view?usp=sharing

 

The ONLY strangeness I see is that just before it happens, some of the voltages go blank for a blink of a second, come back, and then it goes off?? That is literally all I have to go off.

 

I will try 85% power limit, AND lower boost clock to see if it still happens to try and go further into a power draw issue.

[Held_Games]

On 6/22/2020 at 2:06 AM, Jacob29 said:

The only way I can then turn my machine back on, is by unplugging my PSU, waiting or holding down the power button (if this even does anything), and then turning it back on.

Due to the "Waiting or holding down the power button" it seems to be a PSU problem (I looks like the capacitors has to discharge, before a powerup). Can you try with another PSU?

[BlackManINC]

51 minutes ago, Held_Games said:

Due to the "Waiting or holding down the power button" it seems to be a PSU problem (I looks like the capacitors has to discharge, before a powerup). Can you try with another PSU?

I've been trying to tell him that this is likely the issue but he insists on trying to scoot around it.

[Held_Games]

31 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

I've been trying to tell him that this is likely the issue but he insists on trying to scoot around it.

Ohh sorry I might have misread some of the comments then...