Strange hard crashes...

[BTGbullseye]

Ok, so my computer has been hard crashing recently. Instantly turning off completely, and requiring the PSU switch to sit in the off position for at least an hour before it will do more than just "click" and instantly crash into the same situation, so I'm leaning heavily towards a hardware issue. What complicates things is that it almost always happens initially when Steam is just finishing updating a game, and I'm using any form of web browsing, (Chrome, or any Steam stuff that uses the internet, like the news page or discussions) though this is only about 80% of the crashes. (the other 20% are when gaming or watching YouTube)

 

I originally updated the BIOS of my motherboard to try and mitigate the issue somewhat, and that seemed to work for about a week, before it was crashing daily. Then I reset all BIOS settings to default and manually reinput all my settings, and that worked for 3 days. Then I tried dusting out my system, (which it definitely needed) and noticed my CPU AIO was extremely low on coolant, so I refilled that. That fix lasted me 2 days. Now I'm stuck at my original guess, that it's my PSU dying.

 

Been working with PC repair semi-pro on and off for a couple decades, (more off than on for the past few years) and never seen this issue before, so any insight would be appreciated.

 

EDIT: All temps are within normal parameters, and no hardware failure events are recorded.

[Motifator]

The Capstone should be a 2012 era PSU, I recall they were Super Flower designs with Nippon capacitors, though given the age of the PSU, you might as well blame it on the power supply. Do you have a share PSU to test the computer with?

[BTGbullseye]

Just now, Motifator said:

Do you have a share PSU to test the computer with?

I do not at this time. I've been out of a job for medical reasons for so long I haven't been able to afford to get the newer PSU I've been aiming for.

[BTGbullseye]

I might have found the culprit for the crashes.

 

Back when I first needed to refill my GPU AIO, I decided to disassemble one of the quick disconnects to see how it was constructed, but I apparently put it back together wrong and it was restricting flow significantly. Found that out when the pump motor started squealing at me. I re-disassembled it, and made sure I got it back together the RIGHT way this time. (I also topped up the loop) GPU temps are looking good now.

[BTGbullseye]

On 5/19/2024 at 3:33 PM, BTGbullseye said:

I might have found the culprit for the crashes.

I was wrong.

 

At least I finally got around to cleaning the GPU AIO coldplate, and repasting everything. Somehow it managed to fix an issue I've had for over a year too. (GPU hotspot reaching max temp almost instantly and hampering GPU performance in certain situations, now instead of 119°c it's staying around 103°c, which is 10° below throttling temps)

[BTGbullseye]

Ok, so I might have narrowed the primary triggering issue down somewhat.

 

Any time I'm watching youtube, then manually trigger an update to a game in Steam, as soon as the update finishes, the system crashes. It fully completes the update without any errors, even finishing all writing to the drive, but instant system crash at completion.

 

If this is a PSU issue, then it should be fixed sometime tomorrow when my new PSU arrives. (Be Quiet! Pure Power 12 M 1000W)

[BTGbullseye]

No crashes so far. Been running for about 11 hours, doing things that previously caused crashes in less than 2 hours. Looks like it was the PSU, which was the very first thing I guessed when the crashing started, but desperately hoped wasn't the cause. (didn't want to have to spend $140 to replace the PSU, even if it was operating at 30-70% duty cycle for nearly a solid decade)