Pc Turning Off For No Reason.

[MEXICO MAN]

My pc has been shutting off abruptly and restarting, its clean, gets moderately ok air flow, cpu is always 26 or so and gpu doesn not matter. I have the room at 60F, and my psu is more than enough. I even changed the mobo but it still shuts off. Even after checking the ssd and ram to see if they are failing just showed that I paid for good pruducts. Help.

[porkcow]

Well if you have checked every other component like you said and it all checked out it sounds kinda obvious that your PSU might be the problem here. How exactly does it shut down? Is it like the power being cut or is it like windows shutting down and restarting? How often does this happen? What are you doing when this happens? Can you smell anything inside your case when it happens like maybe the smell of burnt wires or something?

[Comic King]

I read on Tom's Hardware that this type of issue is common when the motherboard gets a very low level of voltage. They said something about the CPU taking too much for itself. I'd give you the link if I had it. Look up consequences of low voltage on motherboard, that might help.

 

Second thing is, did you check the 'Choose when the computer sleeps' under Power settings in Control panel? Try setting the way your computer uses the power to 'Performance' instead of Power saving or whatever. Something over there might be causing your PC to restart or shut down.

 

I had this program called Asus Smart Dictor on my old pile of bricks, it was very useful for checking CPU, GPU and motherboard temperatures. It also showed the amount of power that the PSU was sending into the rig. Try it out, might give you a heads-up.

 

Third thing I would suspect is a virus. My old rig would reset and shut down all the time when it got infected by a virus, but I doubt yours has one, since you said that it's a clean machine.

 

Fourth, as Porkcow above said, the PSU could be faulty. Ask some of your buddies to lend you a PSU, it doesn't take much to change one. If it works with that other one, you know what to do.

 

Hope this helps mang. I'm not an IT expert, but I learned a few things from building my new rig a month ago

Edited July 14, 2016 by Comic King

[MEXICO MAN]

I have been sitting here for days with my pc in pieces so I didnt see your replies until just now. It was the psu, I bought a evga 650w P2 psu unit and it seems that they gave me a faulty one and want me to pay for shipping to send it to them and then wait a few weeks to get another. fucking LOL, what a garbage system they have. I think im better off with my stock 400w POS that my pc first came with. I think im done with evga, any suggestions? Oh, im building for the gtx 1070 so wish me luck!

[imasonaz]

Sorry to bump this week old post, but my suggestion would be don't cheap out on your PSU. My minimum suggestion is an 80 PLUS Gold rating (platinum or titanium would be ideal) - this shows how well they designed and put into the PSU, look for at last a 5 year warranty for the same reason.

 

For companies, I personally have a Corsair PSU, and have used Seasonic (they're good price for what you get and are more in the industrial business, so pretty reliable). If neither of those, I would go with ThermalTake.

[Hydranix_]

PSU is the single MOST important part of any and every computer. This is the one component you can not afford to cut cost on in any way. PSUs have the ability to instantly destroy every single other component, and in the case of a few uncertified Chinese brands, the user as well.

• Only buy a PSU that is of a respected brand.
  
• Only buy a PSU with a 80 PLUS Gold or better rating. (This rating is regarding its efficiency which is an indicator or high quality parts)
  
• Never load your PSU over 100% of its capability.
  
• Test the PSU switch and check that fans work (be aware of quiet PSUs which fans only work when needed). RMA immediately if not. DO NOT USE.
  
• Listen for high pitched whines, squeals, or other "electrical sounds". PSUs should be silent other than their fans and relay switches. RMA if the PSU makes any weird noises. Trust your instincts.
  
• Do NOT use any kind of adaptors for adapting any plug to anything else. For example:
  

1. 4-pin 12V CPU connectors --> 8-pin 12V CPU connector
    
   
2. Molex --> PCIe 6/8 Pin connector
    
   
3. Molex --> Case Fan
    
   
4. (god forbid) Case Fan Header --> anything other than cooling components
   

• Don't buy a PSU that has a maximum wattage rating that far exceeds the maximum you will actually draw. You'll want to aim for between 70% and 90% load at all times, even idle. (If you live where your mains voltage is 220/240, you can aim for 60%-90% load). That means that if your system pulls 300Watts at full load with all of your crap plugged into it, than you only need a ~350Watt PSU for maximum efficiency. Why does efficiency matter? Well it does cost you money for the wasted power, but more importantly, inefficient electronics turn the wasted energy directly into heat. If you have a 1200Watt PSU, only ever use 100Watts, and it runs so inefficient that it wastes about 50Watts, then that adds ~0.025C per second to your system. That's almost 100C per hour of unnecessary heat that needs to be removed from the system. That heat would be better removed from your CPU.
  

Edited August 6, 2016 by Hydranix_

[imasonaz]

Bumped again, but not sure what you're on about with the adapter stuff or load. Most adapters, as long as they are made well are no issue, you just have to stay under the rated maximum for each voltage rail. Buying a somewhat over-rated PSU is a good idea, because at full load, a 80PLUS Gold rated PSU is working at 87% efficiency (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus) meaning your 500W PSU is actually maxing at ~435W, and running it at 100% 24/7 will cut its life very quickly.

 

When spec'ing a PSU, your best target is about 50% max load. You will get best efficiency there (90-94%), and best life out of your PSU.

[Short]

Listen for high pitched whines, squeals, or other "electrical sounds". PSUs should be silent other than their fans and relay switches. RMA if the PSU makes any weird noises. Trust your instincts.

 

This isn't always true, motherboards, GPUs and PSUs can have "coil whine", which sure is annoying but is no indicator that something is faulty.

 

Here's a nice list of quality tiers of common PSUs.

 

http://i.imgur.com/361pNaI.png

Edited August 7, 2016 by Short

[Hydranix_]

Bumped again, but not sure what you're on about with the adapter stuff or load. Most adapters, as long as they are made well are no issue, you just have to stay under the rated maximum for each voltage rail.

 

Yes, but if you buy a proper PSU (modular is a good idea), you should have every power connection available.

 

Granted you may upgrade something like a GPU which your PSU had proper 2x 6pin power connectors, and now you need 2x 8pin connectors, in which case an adapter may be the only option.

 

The adapters I hate are the two 4pin molex (think old IDE HDD power) to 6pin AUX/PCIe power. Those invite all kinds of mistakes that most people aren't aware of.

 

Adapters also invite trouble by potentially pulling the maximum current from one rail, while using almost none from the other rail. This causes one rail to become much hotter than the other and degrades the power supply faster.

 

Buying a somewhat over-rated PSU is a good idea, bea 80PLUS cause at full load, Gold rated PSU is working at 87% efficiency (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus) meaning your 500W PSU is actually maxing at ~435W, and running it at 100% 24/7 will cut its life very quickly.

 

A power supply is rated by its output power, not its input power. So a 500W power supply at 100% its capability will deliver about 500W of power to its load, but will draw more than 500W from the mains depending on its efficiency.

 

When spec'ing a PSU, your best target is about 50% max load. You will get best efficiency there (90-94%), and best life out of your PSU.

 

For some and usually the best PSUs you'll get good efficiency at 50%, but for most decent PSUs, 70% +/-10% i believe is a good target to aim for.

 

No system will draw its max power for any extended period of time unless designed for that exact purpose (but then why would they be reading this). So aiming for max load to be 50% of the PSU's rated maximum will mean that the power supply is running at far less than 50% its rated max which also happens to be the least efficient way to run a PSU.

 

This isn't always true, motherboards, GPUs and PSUs can have "coil whine", which sure is annoying but is no indicator that something is faulty.

 

Any properly designed, high quality switched mode power supply should not whine as the inductors windings are secured to the core, and the whole inductor is usually hotsnotted to the board.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Hydranix_