PC shuts down during games after a few minutes – PSU replaced, no change

[deus_lexx]

Hi everyone,
I’m struggling with a persistent issue and would really appreciate any advice.

Build Info:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6650 XT
• Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Mortar Max WiFi
• RAM: 2x8GB DDR4-3200 Patriot Memory
• SSD: WD SN570 250GB (boot) + 1TB (storage)
• PSU (original): Chieftec Task TPS-700S (700W Bronze)
• PSU (current): Thermaltake GF 750W Gold
• Case: Ginzzu CL220
• CPU Cooler: ID-Cooling SE-224-XTS ARGB WHITE
• OS: Windows 11

The issue:

Ever since I built this PC two years ago, it has occasionally shut down instantly during games, like someone pulled the power cable. No BSOD, no restart, just a sudden power loss.

In most modern games (like Baldur's Gate 3 or Space Marine 2), shutdowns happen irregularly — sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours. I managed by quicksaving often and pushing through.

However, I recently started Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and now the system shuts down reliably within 5 minutes of gameplay, making it unplayable.

Once, it also shut down while generating an image with Stable Diffusion (using GPU acceleration), which was the only non-gaming-related crash I’ve had so far.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Replaced PSU: from Chieftec to Thermaltake Toughpower GF 750W – no effect.
• Stress testing: Prime95, FurMark, OCCT, and AIDA64 all pass with no issues.
• Thermals OK: CPU stays below 89°C, GPU below 55°C under load.
• Power logging with HWiNFO64: +12V holds steady at 11.95V, +5V at 5.09V during shutdowns.
• MSI Afterburner: set GPU power limit to -6% – no effect.
• Updated BIOS to the latest version – no improvement.
• Windows downgrade (11 → 10) – didn’t help, reverted back to 11.
• Tried plugging the power cable directly into a wall outlet instead of the power strip – didn't help.

• Made a CMOS reset – no change.

• Ran Memtest86 – no errors.

There was an interesting point on Reddit about the same issue having to do with an AMD CPU and GPU combo. 
The suggestion was to uninstall AMD Adrenaline and reinstalling the GPU drivers without Adrenaline and use FanControl to set custom fan curves to prevent the GPU fans from shutting down. Unfortunately, this didn’t help either — the PC still shuts down during games. Maybe it's worth looking into further?

Symptoms:

• Instant shutdown (no warning, no BSOD)
• Event Viewer only shows generic “unexpected shutdown” (Event ID 6008)
• GPU fans ramp up audibly before the crash and also you can hear a little tsk-tsk sound.
• Only occurs under GPU-intensive load (games or Stable Diffusion)
• Never crashes during CPU-only workloads or stress tests

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated — I’m ready to troubleshoot anything at this point.

[strange13930]

4 minutes ago, deus_lexx said:

Hi everyone,
I’m struggling with a persistent issue and would really appreciate any advice.

Build Info:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6650 XT
• Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Mortar Max WiFi
• RAM: 2x8GB DDR4-3200 Patriot Memory
• SSD: WD SN570 250GB (boot) + 1TB (storage)
• PSU (original): Chieftec Task TPS-700S (700W Bronze)
• PSU (current): Thermaltake GF 750W Gold
• Case: Ginzzu CL220
• CPU Cooler: ID-Cooling SE-224-XTS ARGB WHITE
• OS: Windows 11

The issue:

Ever since I built this PC two years ago, it has occasionally shut down instantly during games, like someone pulled the power cable. No BSOD, no restart, just a sudden power loss.

In most modern games (like Baldur's Gate 3 or Space Marine 2), shutdowns happen irregularly — sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours. I managed by quicksaving often and pushing through.

However, I recently started Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and now the system shuts down reliably within 5 minutes of gameplay, making it unplayable.

Once, it also shut down while generating an image with Stable Diffusion (using GPU acceleration), which was the only non-gaming-related crash I’ve had so far.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Replaced PSU: from Chieftec to Thermaltake Toughpower GF 750W – no effect.
• Stress testing: Prime95, FurMark, OCCT, and AIDA64 all pass with no issues.
• Thermals OK: CPU stays below 89°C, GPU below 55°C under load.
• Power logging with HWiNFO64: +12V holds steady at 11.95V, +5V at 5.09V during shutdowns.
• MSI Afterburner: set GPU power limit to -6% – no effect.
• Updated BIOS to the latest version – no improvement.
• Windows downgrade (11 → 10) – didn’t help, reverted back to 11.
• Tried plugging the power cable directly into a wall outlet instead of the power strip – didn't help.

• Made a CMOS reset – no change.

• Ran Memtest86 – no errors.

There was an interesting point on Reddit about the same issue having to do with an AMD CPU and GPU combo. 
The suggestion was to uninstall AMD Adrenaline and reinstalling the GPU drivers without Adrenaline and use FanControl to set custom fan curves to prevent the GPU fans from shutting down. Unfortunately, this didn’t help either — the PC still shuts down during games. Maybe it's worth looking into further?

Symptoms:

• Instant shutdown (no warning, no BSOD)
• Event Viewer only shows generic “unexpected shutdown” (Event ID 6008)
• GPU fans ramp up audibly before the crash and also you can hear a little tsk-tsk sound.
• Only occurs under GPU-intensive load (games or Stable Diffusion)
• Never crashes during CPU-only workloads or stress tests

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated — I’m ready to troubleshoot anything at this point.

do you have access to a different gpu you could use?

[deus_lexx]

4 minutes ago, strange13930 said:

do you have access to a different gpu you could use?

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a different GPU right now, but I’ll try asking some friends if they might have one I could borrow to test

[PDifolco]

10 minutes ago, deus_lexx said:

Hi everyone,
I’m struggling with a persistent issue and would really appreciate any advice.

Build Info:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
• GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6650 XT
• Motherboard: MSI MAG B550 Mortar Max WiFi
• RAM: 2x8GB DDR4-3200 Patriot Memory
• SSD: WD SN570 250GB (boot) + 1TB (storage)
• PSU (original): Chieftec Task TPS-700S (700W Bronze)
• PSU (current): Thermaltake GF 750W Gold
• Case: Ginzzu CL220
• CPU Cooler: ID-Cooling SE-224-XTS ARGB WHITE
• OS: Windows 11

The issue:

Ever since I built this PC two years ago, it has occasionally shut down instantly during games, like someone pulled the power cable. No BSOD, no restart, just a sudden power loss.

In most modern games (like Baldur's Gate 3 or Space Marine 2), shutdowns happen irregularly — sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours. I managed by quicksaving often and pushing through.

However, I recently started Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and now the system shuts down reliably within 5 minutes of gameplay, making it unplayable.

Once, it also shut down while generating an image with Stable Diffusion (using GPU acceleration), which was the only non-gaming-related crash I’ve had so far.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Replaced PSU: from Chieftec to Thermaltake Toughpower GF 750W – no effect.
• Stress testing: Prime95, FurMark, OCCT, and AIDA64 all pass with no issues.
• Thermals OK: CPU stays below 89°C, GPU below 55°C under load.
• Power logging with HWiNFO64: +12V holds steady at 11.95V, +5V at 5.09V during shutdowns.
• MSI Afterburner: set GPU power limit to -6% – no effect.
• Updated BIOS to the latest version – no improvement.
• Windows downgrade (11 → 10) – didn’t help, reverted back to 11.
• Tried plugging the power cable directly into a wall outlet instead of the power strip – didn't help.

• Made a CMOS reset – no change.

• Ran Memtest86 – no errors.

There was an interesting point on Reddit about the same issue having to do with an AMD CPU and GPU combo. 
The suggestion was to uninstall AMD Adrenaline and reinstalling the GPU drivers without Adrenaline and use FanControl to set custom fan curves to prevent the GPU fans from shutting down. Unfortunately, this didn’t help either — the PC still shuts down during games. Maybe it's worth looking into further?

Symptoms:

• Instant shutdown (no warning, no BSOD)
• Event Viewer only shows generic “unexpected shutdown” (Event ID 6008)
• GPU fans ramp up audibly before the crash and also you can hear a little tsk-tsk sound.
• Only occurs under GPU-intensive load (games or Stable Diffusion)
• Never crashes during CPU-only workloads or stress tests

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated — I’m ready to troubleshoot anything at this point.

I've had some crashes, it was always GPU drivers shenanigans occuring at high GPU clocks, depending on graphics engine

Benchmark/stress apps never triggered it

Could you try lowering max GPU clock by say 400MHz and check what happens ? 

[Sawa Takahashi]

1 hour ago, deus_lexx said:

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6650 XT

If nothing works, I'd check GPU settings with AMD software (not MSI afterburner) to slightly raise VRAM and core voltage. BE VERY CAUTIOUS. slightly means +100 to +200 mv at most. Higher than that and you risk of frying your GPU permanently.

Good luck !

[deus_lexx]

2 hours ago, PDifolco said:

I've had some crashes, it was always GPU drivers shenanigans occuring at high GPU clocks, depending on graphics engine

Benchmark/stress apps never triggered it

Could you try lowering max GPU clock by say 400MHz and check what happens ? 

---

Wow, I think that might have actually worked — thank you so much!

I lowered the max GPU clock by 400MHz as you suggested, and for the first time ever, my PC didn't shut down within the first 15 minutes of playing. That has literally never happened before with this game.

I’m extremely grateful for the tip — I’ve been struggling with this issue for so long and tried everything from a new PSU to clean Windows installs.

Thank you again for taking the time to help!

[deus_lexx]

2 hours ago, PDifolco said:

I've had some crashes, it was always GPU drivers shenanigans occuring at high GPU clocks, depending on graphics engine

I’m curious about why this happened in the first place. Does this mean my GPU is faulty or of lower quality? Should I be worried about long-term issues? Or is this just something that occasionally happens with certain cards or drivers?
 

Happy to keep the clock lower if that keeps the system stable, but I’d love to understand what this says about the health of my GPU and whether there’s anything else I should do going forward.

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, deus_lexx said:

I’m curious about why this happened in the first place. Does this mean my GPU is faulty or of lower quality? Should I be worried about long-term issues? Or is this just something that occasionally happens with certain cards or drivers?
 

Happy to keep the clock lower if that keeps the system stable, but I’d love to understand what this says about the health of my GPU and whether there’s anything else I should do going forward.

Idk but I think AMD drivers still have weaknesses and some new games put the clocks too far for the voltage then bam everything crashes...

What made me think it was a GPU issue was because everything else except some games worked perfectly, which was your case too!