System shutting down

GrimUrsine · June 29, 2020

Hi! I'll try to cut the long story short.

Specs: 16gb Ram ( Corsair Vengeance ddr3 kit);
CPU: intel core i7-4770k;
GPU: Asus Strix RX580 8gb;
Mobo: Maximus VI Extreme;
PSU: Corsair HX 1050;

Some background about the boot drive: Windows is installed on a 1TB Western Digital HDD, and I've had some trouble with it in the past, in the form of the system completely freezing and becoming unresponsive to any command straight after booting. (This went away after I formatted and reinstalled windows on it a couple of years ago.) I am giving context about it because every time the system forces a power off, without fail, I hear a sequence of 3 clicks and 3 faint beeps coming from the boot drive. (Click, beep, click, beep, click, beep) right before the system turns off. After some poking around, it makes the exact same sound whenever I shut down or restart normally. (But it's a single click-beep in that case).

The problem: I upgraded my GPU to the one listed above. It runs smoothly up until a point, BUT the system completely shuts down seemingly when it needs to go through higher work loads (such as benchmarks and demanding games). I checked all connections and later found out that the GPU wasn't plugged in all the way, so I went and shoved it all the way, which solved the problem for exactly a day. It benchmarked, gamed, (you name it) perfectly fine, so I don't think it's a dead GPU. Also, there are no visible artifacts, no weird colors, no dead pixels, etc. It doesn't slow down or lose performance before the shut down happens, or anything like that. It's on default settings, no overclock or special profile applied. (the CPU is under an OC profile from bios, but it's been running like that for years with no issues.)

My troubleshooting: -Right off the bat, I don't think the PSU is strangling it. I even went and unplugged it from the protection adapter and plugged it straight into the wall, with no success.

-I went and updated every single thing Windows was asking for.

-I downloaded DDU and I removed the old NVIDIA drivers and the current AMD driver (just so I can perform a clean driver installation).

-DDU'd the current driver and installed an older version.

-DDU'd all the drivers and just ran it with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.

-I updated the BIOS. (Although I should mention, the last version available is from 2014.)

-Reset CMOS (multiple times)

-Changed PCI slot.

-Switched RAM sticks between them, ran it with only one RAM stick installed, and then the other.

-Checked device manager for errors; tried running benchmarks in Safe Mode (as suggested on a subreddit)

-Made sure it's not overheating, manually cranked the fans up to 100 and set the AC in my room to max. (And even it it were overheating, it would have probably throttled first instead of shutting down completely, methinks.)(I also installed MSI Afterburner, but I wasn't able to make it display over the benchmark)

Today, while troubleshooting, the system wouldn't post at all, and it gave me the A2 error, with the speaker giving off the 1 long, 4 short beeps error. (Which, after consulting the internet I assumed was a hard drive issue), but after unplugging everything and plugging it back in, it started working again. (I also disabled all the PCI slots from the MoBo, just to make sure it wasn't the GPU).

Also, the MoBo has an extra 4-pin CPU power plug, in addition to the 8-pin one, but there's conflicting information on the internet about it needing to be powered. The manual says it's either one OR the other, but I've read about people asking Asus Tech support and getting conflicting answers, raging from what the manual says to "you need to plug both of them in if you're overclocking". There's also another 6-pin connector above the PCI slots for (quoting from the manual) "when installing multiple display cards to provide sufficient power supply." Should I be looking into those as well?

I am fairly convinced that it's a hardware issue, but I have no idea what else it could be. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

5x5 · June 29, 2020

Replace the power supply with something functional.

GrimUrsine · June 29, 2020

Just now, 5x5 said:

Replace the power supply with something functional.

I am fairly convinced that it's working, since it was powering the old GPU (which required two 8-pin connectors) and a dedicated sound card just fine until I made the switch. It just occured to me, though, that I could plug a cable into another one of the ports in the PSU and see if the problem persists.