Can a bad/failing PSU cause software issues?

[Casual Cube]

So I have a couple games crashing on me, sometimes during heavy load, sometimes when simply doing an install or while just idling. (ARK, Valorant, Sea of Thieves, Apex Legends etc.)
I reached out to some of my community members and friends and there seems to be a consensus that it wasn't just the games that's acting up but also the PC itself which was built 7 years ago. I agree. 

However some of them said it could be a bad power supply. 
This baffled me. how can a power supply, that carries no data and only supplies pure voltage to the components cause games to crash? Is there such a thing? 
Granted it is a locally sourced part that came with my v. cheap case and it isn't exactly rated nicely or anything. But I can't wrap my head around how a psu can affect software. 

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[DoctorNick]

You still have a 4.2ghz OC on your CPU? I have had trouble with my overclock since the latest windows update and bios update, Me firmware etc. I would just try running everything stock and see how it goes. Also 4.2ghz on a 2600 isn't really noticable in game anyway. Auto PBO should be similar or better in most instances. PSU should be fine. If you still have issues after resetting to defaults, reinstall windows, if still issues, you could RMA PSU. Should take 14 days or so with EVGA.

[Caennanu]

A powersupply can not directly cause software to fail. However, software is nothing more than a set of instructions to execute and expect a return on the execution. When the execution becomes corrupted, which CAN happen due to power issues, the software will fail depending on the severity. So yes, a malfunctioning powersupply can and will cause hardware and thus software to perform suboptimal.

 

If you want to compare it to a real life situation. Say you're driving on a road, a road needs to be paved right? Well, over time the pavement starts to deteriorate and cause pudholes. Now see the road as your power delivery. Where when it was all new you had no pudholes that could damage your car (software) you now, 7 years later, have many pudholes which can, but not always will, damage your car.

[Spotty]

If you're running an overclock on the CPU, RAM, or graphics card then that is more likely causing the issues. Remove the OC and see if the problems persist. If the problems still persist try updating or rolling back your display drivers since it's happening when playing games.

You should rule out all of the typical causes of such problems first.

[Juular]

It's far more likely to be RAM or CPU instability.