Computer randomly restarts

[DakotaDidYou]

I need help. I'm going to start from the beginning incase any details are important. 

 

I went to sleep watching a show on my PC I woke up and the PC was on and fine. There has been extreme weather where I live including hail, snow while the sun is shining, heavy rain, and strong wins that knocked out my internet connection for about eight hours. Last night, or early Wednesday morning I was redownloading Dark Souls to play with a new Xbox 360 wired controller. I was testing out my controller in another game while it downloaded and that's when the first crash happened. It has crashed about six times and as of writing this it's still Wednesday. This last time was very odd as I left it on with the GPU fan turned all the way up while I took a nap. I woke up to a very unusual white screen with yellow and blue patterns. At first I thought I had fell asleep and youtube started playing a weird anime or something. Until I realized that it was infact my computer just messing up. Any help would be appreciated. I am hoping if it is a mechanical failure that It's either my PSU or GPU as they are the only parts still under warranty. Thank you to anybody who reads this. Any idea would be helpful. 

[Guilherme Alles]

It looks pretty messed up indeed... Did you take a look at the CPU, motherboard and GPU temps?

[Enderman]

look at windows event viewer to find out what the problem is

[HPWebcamAble]

Specs of PC?

 

I'd blame the PSU, if your PC just randomly 'restarts'. If it shows a  blue screen though, it may not be the PSU.

[DakotaDidYou]

1 minute ago, Guilherme Alles said:

It looks pretty messed up indeed... Did you take a look at the CPU, motherboard and GPU temps?

The GPU is hovering around 23 degrees celsius. 

[Drkrinklez]

Its a bad ram stick. Take out one ram stick and boot it up. Happened to me plenty of times, and that fixed it. 

[Guilherme Alles]

1 minute ago, DakotaDidYou said:

The GPU is hovering around 23 degrees celsius. 

Hmm, it looks like a PSU-ish problem then...What are the specs of your pc?

[DakotaDidYou]

1 minute ago, HPWebcamAble said:

Specs of PC?

 

I'd blame the PSU, if your PC just randomly 'restarts'. If it shows a  blue screen though, it may not be the PSU.

AMD FX-4300

Hyper 212 Evo

8 gigs of Crucial 1600Mhs RAM

MSI 760GM-P34

1TB Western Digital Black

EVGA GTX 960 SSC 4GB

500 watt Corsair CX 

[DakotaDidYou]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

look at windows event viewer to find out what the problem is

In Event Viewer it says under the warning tab Source CVHSVC, 3 hours ago. That's really the only thing that's happened recently. 

[Guilherme Alles]

1 minute ago, DakotaDidYou said:

AMD FX-4300

Hyper 212 Evo

8 gigs of Crucial 1600Mhs RAM

MSI 760GM-P34

1TB Western Digital Black

EVGA GTX 960 SSC 4GB

500 watt Corsair CX 

Does your processor have integrated graphics? Really don't know much about AMD these days... But if it has, you can start troubleshooting by removing everything from your system except for processor, one stick of memory and your boot drive (and PSU, obviously). Run a stability test and, if it runs fine for some time (I would say something around 20 minutes is enough), start adding your components back one by one until you see the problem again.

[DakotaDidYou]

11 minutes ago, Guilherme Alles said:

It looks pretty messed up indeed... Did you take a look at the CPU, motherboard and GPU temps?

Don't know my CPU temp as RealTemp doesn't support my AMD-FX 4300 for some reason, but my GPU hasn't gone above 23c. 

[DakotaDidYou]

1 minute ago, Guilherme Alles said:

Does your processor have integrated graphics? Really don't know much about AMD these days... But if it has, you can start troubleshooting by removing everything from your system except for processor, one stick of memory and your boot drive (and PSU, obviously). Run a stability test and, if it runs fine for some time (I would say something around 20 minutes is enough), start adding your components back one by one until you see the problem again.

What way would you recommend as a stability test? 

[Guilherme Alles]

Just now, DakotaDidYou said:

Don't know my CPU temp as RealTemp doesn't support my AMD-FX 4300 for some reason, but my GPU hasn't gone above 23c. 

Have you tried HWMonitor?

[Guilherme Alles]

1 minute ago, DakotaDidYou said:

What way would you recommend as a stability test? 

Prime95 would be a good choice... If your CPU is not overclocked, that hyper212 EVO will keep the CPU in a very reasonable temperature

[DakotaDidYou]

1 minute ago, Guilherme Alles said:

Have you tried HWMonitor?

I just downloaded it and my min temp was 9c and max temp was 20c.

[HPWebcamAble]

CX PSUs are not designed for gaming (Read more here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/why-you-should-not-buy-a-corsair-cx )

 

Get another PSU to test with. At this moment I suspect the CX.

[Guilherme Alles]

13 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

CX PSUs are not designed for gaming (Read more here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/why-you-should-not-buy-a-corsair-cx )

 

Get another PSU to test with. At this moment I suspect the CX.

Yep, me too. What bugs me though is that the pc seems to be restarting randomly, even when the PSU is not being stressed by any program and the power consumption (should be) far below the 500W rating

[HPWebcamAble]

9 minutes ago, Guilherme Alles said:

Yep, me too. What bugs me though is that the pc seems to be restarting randomly, even when the PSU is not being stressed by any program and the power consumption (should be) far below the 500W rating

I believe (dont quote me on this tho) that it has to do with the max temperature of its parts. Its something ridiculously low like 40 C. In an office situation, with light use, it's fine, but under moderate load it overheats quickly.

[Guilherme Alles]

A small checklist of what COULD be the problem, in my opinion and order of likelihood:

 

1: PSU - try to get another PSU to test with. Something above 500W is good enough (below that might be risky depending on the PSU).

2: Memory - if you are using dual channel memory, try to run your system with a single stick. Otherwise, test it with another DDR3 module.

3: CPU - something that I forgot to ask: is your CPU overclocked? if it is, try tuning your overclock down a bit, and if it isn't, why not?!?!?! With 20c idle you could be overclocking the hell out of it . Just kidding, but I can't think of an easy way to diagnose your CPU. If nothing else works, maybe try testing your whole system with another CPU...

4: GPU - try running your system with the integrated graphics (if applicable).

5: Motherboard - bad luck, my friend, not much I believe could be done... Just replace the damn thing.

[-rascal-]

1 hour ago, DakotaDidYou said:

I just downloaded it and my min temp was 9c and max temp was 20c.

You are looking at the wrong temperature reading.
Can you post a screenshot of what you are seeing in HWMonitor?

 

It varies from board to board, but the more "accurate" reading in HWMonitor for the CPU should be either 'TMPIN0' or 'TMPIN1.'

DO NOT go by the Package > Temperature reading.

Spoiler

My Phenom II X6 1090T on ASUS Crosshair IV Formula 890FX board (CPU idling in desktop)

 

My Phenom II X6 1090T on ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX board

 

My FX-8350 on ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX

 

FX-4130 on a Gigabyte motherboard (another LTT member)

 

FX-8350 on MSi 990FX Gaming motherboard (another LTT member)

 

FX-4100 on a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard (another LTT forum member)

 

[DakotaDidYou]

4 hours ago, -rascal- said:

You are looking at the wrong temperature reading.
Can you post a screenshot of what you are seeing in HWMonitor?

 

It varies from board to board, but the more "accurate" reading in HWMonitor for the CPU should be either 'TMPIN0' or 'TMPIN1.'

DO NOT go by the Package > Temperature reading.

  Reveal hidden contents

My Phenom II X6 1090T on ASUS Crosshair IV Formula 890FX board (CPU idling in desktop)

 

My Phenom II X6 1090T on ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX board

 

My FX-8350 on ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX

 

FX-4130 on a Gigabyte motherboard (another LTT member)

 

FX-8350 on MSi 990FX Gaming motherboard (another LTT member)

 

FX-4100 on a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard (another LTT forum member)

 

I was looking at the wrong place. 

[DakotaDidYou]

5 hours ago, Guilherme Alles said:

A small checklist of what COULD be the problem, in my opinion and order of likelihood:

 

1: PSU - try to get another PSU to test with. Something above 500W is good enough (below that might be risky depending on the PSU).

2: Memory - if you are using dual channel memory, try to run your system with a single stick. Otherwise, test it with another DDR3 module.

3: CPU - something that I forgot to ask: is your CPU overclocked? if it is, try tuning your overclock down a bit, and if it isn't, why not?!?!?! With 20c idle you could be overclocking the hell out of it . Just kidding, but I can't think of an easy way to diagnose your CPU. If nothing else works, maybe try testing your whole system with another CPU...

4: GPU - try running your system with the integrated graphics (if applicable).

5: Motherboard - bad luck, my friend, not much I believe could be done... Just replace the damn thing.

Thanks. I'm currently trying running it with only one stick of RAM. It's actually been about three house of no crashing. I'm hoping that's all it is. 

[Guilherme Alles]

10 hours ago, DakotaDidYou said:

Thanks. I'm currently trying running it with only one stick of RAM. It's actually been about three house of no crashing. I'm hoping that's all it is. 

That's great, let us know if you found out what the problem is  

[DakotaDidYou]

12 hours ago, Guilherme Alles said:

That's great, let us know if you found out what the problem is  

Ninety-nine percent sure it's the RAM. I ran a stress test. Left the computer on for ten hours, and no crashes. I did try switching which RAM stick I was using and the computer wouldn't boot and just kept beeping so I switched the RAM sticks again and it booted up fine. Thanks for all help. First time posting on this forum and was really surprised I got help so quickly, and was able to figure out the problem. 

[Guilherme Alles]

11 hours ago, DakotaDidYou said:

Ninety-nine percent sure it's the RAM. I ran a stress test. Left the computer on for ten hours, and no crashes. I did try switching which RAM stick I was using and the computer wouldn't boot and just kept beeping so I switched the RAM sticks again and it booted up fine. Thanks for all help. First time posting on this forum and was really surprised I got help so quickly, and was able to figure out the problem. 

Glad you were able to sort it out, bro