Restarts randomly during games

Xaniith · March 25, 2014

Hey there everyone, I have had this problem for a rather long time now, but I've avoided it by playing other games, but now its getting really annoying.

These restarts are without warning, no BSOD, or tearing of the image before it shuts down, it just turns off and back on again. From what I've seen of what games causes this, its not necessarily heavily intensive games that only do it, some old, light games do it as well. I have tested the RAM multiple times, used IntelBurnTest, prime95, Furmark, but none of them seem to force the system to shut down.

I then decided to use HWMonitor to watch heat and voltage while I play, to see what might cause it, and it seems that the 12V rail (from what I've seen) can go down to 11.5. I haven't seen it go lower but I suspect it would restart by that point. Idle/non-gaming has the 12V rail at 11.808 or so it says. Heat on all components seem to be normal.

Specs:

Windows 8.1 (x64) - It did this on Win7 as well.

Intel i7 3820 @ 3.60GHz with Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cooling

ASUS P9x79 Pro Motherboard

nVidia Geforce GTX 670

G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 PC14900/1866MHz CL9 2x8GB

Thermaltake 700W PSU.

As far as I know, all drivers/BIOS are up to date.

I DID OC the CPU for a short period of time, and I believe its all set to stock now.

I suspect I require a new Power supply, I would just prefer to get some opinions if I should before I do so. If I to get a new one, I'll be looking at something in the Silverstone Strider series, and from what I've seen they're pretty good.

I have been to one or two other forums before this, and I've gotten less than stellar feedback, but one did say it would be the PSU.

Photos if they'll help at all:

[spoiler=Rest of Computer (hush about cable management )]

aludka · March 25, 2014

I agree with you about the PSU. When a person begins to have random restarts the first place I have them investigate is the PSU. If you want to double check your PSU before jumping the gun and buying a new one I would try the following;

Test the PSU in a known stable system if availible.

If you do not have access to another system then you can try checking the voltage with a voltage meter. This is the most reliable way to check the 12v, 5v and 3.3 v rails from the PSU.

In regards to the voltages do not rely on software to give you accurate readings. I've tried numerous different types of software for voltage reading and have not found one to be 100% accurate. The best way is with a volt meter and the next best way is by checking your BIOS readings.

Another thing I always tell people who are looking into a new PSU is to really evaluate the name you are buying. Not only is it important to buy a good name for quality parts but also for how they handle customer service issues in regards to RMAs. All hardware will fail given enough time and stress.

Xaniith · March 25, 2014

Thanks guys for the responses!

Is windows event viewer reporting anything before/after the reboot? does this happen in all games or just a few? how long are you running prime/furmak during these tests, longer then an hour or just a few minutes? do reboots happen at random or only after a few minutes.

my next question is do you have any other programs running on your task bar at all.

I say this because when I have Asus AI suite open on my PC will hard lock when I play BF BC2, but all other games run fine. and BC will run fine if I close AI suite

I'll quickly try and get a restart and show you the event viewer. I remember it saying something but I don't remember what. It can sometimes take a little while for it to restart.

This is for a few games but it seems to change. It used to do it occasionally for dota 2, but then after a while it didn't and hasn't since. With Skyrim, it never used to, but now it does it a lot. From what I've noticed with Diablo 3, turning down the graphics a bit leads to no restarts.

I've done the tests multiple times, some for around an hour, a few around 5hours.

Getting the computer to restart is unreliable. For a couple games that it used to restart for, it did it consistently at a certain part (or a certain time passed - like <5 minutes) but overall, the restart timings are variable, from a couple minutes to an hour or two.

I generally have a few things open at once, Things like Chrome, Steam, Skype. I do have the AI suite running now that you mention it, I don't really need it though, I use it for the USB boost.

I agree with you about the PSU. When a person begins to have random restarts the first place I have them investigate is the PSU. If you want to double check your PSU before jumping the gun and buying a new one I would try the following;

Test the PSU in a known stable system if availible.

If you do not have access to another system then you can try checking the voltage with a voltage meter. This is the most reliable way to check the 12v, 5v and 3.3 v rails from the PSU.

In regards to the voltages do not rely on software to give you accurate readings. I've tried numerous different types of software for voltage reading and have not found one to be 100% accurate. The best way is with a volt meter and the next best way is by checking your BIOS readings.

Another thing I always tell people who are looking into a new PSU is to really evaluate the name you are buying. Not only is it important to buy a good name for quality parts but also for how they handle customer service issues in regards to RMAs. All hardware will fail given enough time and stress.

Ah yes, I remember hearing about unreliable software. The BIOS says the 11.808 for the 12V rail as well, but regardless, I'll see about getting a voltage meter.

Xaniith · March 25, 2014

Is windows event viewer reporting anything before/after the reboot?

I got a quick restart like 10 seconds in

Under Windows Logs -> System, there is a Critical and a Error, the rest is Information. the Information doesn't really say anything interesting.

Critical:

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Error:

The previous system shutdown at 4:58:22 PM on ‎3/‎25/‎2014 was unexpected.