Complete System Shutdown While Playing Skyrim SE

[DirtyVinyl]

Skyrim has been running fine for the past 2 weeks. no new mods have been installed and no performance hiccups have occurred previously but starting yesterday my PC shut down and restarted once, then today it has been shutting down without restart almost every 18-20 minutes after playing skyrim.

I did one stress test with cinebench r23 for 30 minutes and no issues were detected, no thermal throttling now crashing. No other game has caused this issue.

This is a new computer, no manual overclocks enabled.

PC Specs:
CPU: Threadripper 3960x
Motherboard: Gigabyte Designare trx4
GPU: Nvidia 3090 FE
RAM: 64gb Trident Nero at 3600mhz
PSU: 1000w Seasonic 80plus platinum

The system is air cooled and the cpu is using a bequiet dark rock trx4

Ive attached 3 pictures on imgur of temps and volts comparing everything from idle to the point of crash. https://imgur.com/a/vS1vChG

[DirtyVinyl]

Publicado originalmente por Liquid Inc:

well, work through it methodically. a hard shut down like this is usually power related. (im literally assuming PSU before even considering a "loose" ram stick)

while off, Id check every cable and make sure everything is where it should be, nothing is showing any signs of damage, and that your using the correct cables.
What i mean by the latter is making sure your using 2 separate PSU cables for the GFX card, that your running the extra power 4/8 pin slots usually in the top left of your motherboard, and that your PSU *is* actually capable of giving the power your machine needs.
it might be labelled 1000w, but is it actually at that on the 12v output?
Since its Seasonic, i assume it is, but do check it.

Publicado originalmente por DirtyVinyl:

The computer was put together in mid February. So its been a solid 3 months. Its kept off the ground and regular maintained for dust and i've set the fan curves to be quiet but to ramp up to full once the cpu gets to about 65c prior to building the computer i triple checked approximately how much power the system would use under load, and the numbers came back to about 850 watts and i took the 3090 power spike into consideration. If 1000 watts aint enough im out of luck cause finding a good 1200 watts in these times is next to impossible.

Im trying different things to see what will help. Skyrim is modded so ill disable some graphics stuff to see if that helps but to think a mod would cause the PC to completely shut off is weird to me. but stranger things have happened.

given that 850w is *just* the GFX card, id wager it's just not big enough to handle it -
Having gone off and checked, your PSU isnt giving out 1000w BTW, its specifically 996w (83A). it also won't like handling that consistantly, and spikes (not just your card) need to factored in.

if in a game your card is pulling 850w, that leaves just 146w for the entire PC. under stress, that's going to be close... (naturally, i doubt skyrim will force a 3090 to full power, but that is something i can't check - im still running a 1080)

personally, with that machine's specs id have to go higher for my own build - Overkill PSU wattage isnt a good choice either, but 1200+ would be the minimum for me, even if that meant id have to go for the 3070 instead for example.

WIth the price of GFX cards, im surprised you cheaped out for the PSU and went lower wattage, even after knowing that 1000w is as close as it is....

Publicado originalmente por DirtyVinyl:

I am running mods, though my mods haven't changed in weeks and have proven to be stable, im not ruling them out either. I did disable a graphics enhancement mod (skyrim 2020) and so far it hasn't crashed but its too soon to call it fixed.

Mods themselves won't force it to hard shutdown. They will however if the game exceeds the power the PSU can provide.

Disabling that graphics mod and no further crashes present themselves, that would confirm it to be power related IMO.


I had a similar issue a few years back with an Akasa Venom PSU. Funnily enough that was also on Skyrim... It was frequent and random restarts/ hard shutdowns, and that was a PSU that simply couldn't handle the power requirements any longer. It wasnt new like yours and had been running the machine for over 5 years. Age is a killer.... Replaced with a slightly higher wattage Corsair unit and problem solved.

Here is an update, I've done all my sanity checks and insured the correct PCI-E cables are firmly installed to the RTX 3090, all components are firmly installed. But the issue persisted.

Second, 850watts was estimated to be the COMPLETE power draw for the whole computer, not just the GFX. however you might still have a point, because if for whatever reason the computer gets pinned to 850watts and THEN the 3090 power spikes above that to 900, or 930w, whatever, that might be enough to trigger the breaker in the PSU especially if @yellowbeard is on to something and the hybrid button lowers the threshold of maximum power capable. (the hybrid button on the PSU was switched on)

Thank you for your analysis and advice. it helps steer me in the right direction. I might have to figure out how to reduce the power draw, as that might be easier than buying a reasonably priced 1200 watt psu right now.

[DirtyVinyl]

Publicado originalmente por Yellowbeard:

Came here to mention a couple things...Liquid Inc. already covered the first with checking to make sure both GPU power cables are attached to the PSU.

2nd...how is the PSU mounted? Does the top of it vent properly?

3rd...the button (not the switch) on the back of the PSU...is it in Normal mode?
You mentioned setting it up in a particular way via software...however fanless and performance are diametrically opposed. (Well...except water cooling.)

(page 3 for venting info)
https://seasonic.com/pub/media/pdf/consumer/user-manual/multilingual-user-manual.pdf

The PSU is facing fan side down through a filter and the case is a dark base pro 900 v2 so there is plenty of clearance for the PSU to breath. BUT the hybrid button was turned on. thanks you for that link to the user manual, it allowed me to which position for the hybrid button meant enabled or disabled. I wonder if that was causing the overall power threshold to be lower than normal. IDK

[DirtyVinyl]

[THE FIX] I disabled Skyrim 2020 Parallax and the computer has not hard shutdown since then. I later re-enabled skyrim 2020 but lowered the graphics settings of the mod (by choosing lower graphics options during the installation of parallax in mod organizer 2) a bit and the issue is still resolved. My hunch is that the mod could be forcing skyirm to draw more power from the GPU, as Liquid Inc said, to render the textures which was causing the PSUs breaker to trip. now believe me i thought about 130ish watts of headroom should be enough considering i only expected the computer to draw 850 watts if the threadripper and 3090 where both pinned to 100% utilization. and i never thought any games i played would do that. especially skyrim, but i guess the mods could have changed that some how and there were other programs, running in the background. Stranger things have happened i guess.

sadly upgrading to a 1200watt at this time is easier said than done, finding one below 400 dollars is tough and spending another 400 dollars on this set up just to see if i can rise the graphics settings a little more in skyrim seems like a waste. so ill just happy with not so photo realistic graphics lol.

Thank you to everyone who helped out. Thanks to you all i was able to different ways of fixing and troubleshooting this issue.

TL:DR of the troubleshooting process for future readers:
1: sanity check: insure all cables and parts are plugged in securely and PSU is plugged into
2: insure drivers are up-to-date and no update are happening in the background
3: check if other games cause the issue
4: use HWInfo to check for voltage or temp abnormalities.
5: disable graphics altering mods

If you have a seasonic PSU like mine, refer to Yellowbeards post for a link to a general manual with helpful info.

[cheshirm]

glad you found a fix. but thought I would bring up another forum thread. op had same problem as you do. turned out every time he played the game on his pc AND the refrigerator door opened, the pc would power off. perhaps plug your pc in somewhere on another circuit and see if the problem reoccurs. since the game runs for 20 mins, maybe something else is drawing extra power outside of your pc.

[Yellowbeard]

Publicado originalmente por cheshirm:

glad you found a fix. but thought I would bring up another forum thread. op had same problem as you do. turned out every time he played the game on his pc AND the refrigerator door opened, the pc would power off. perhaps plug your pc in somewhere on another circuit and see if the problem reoccurs. since the game runs for 20 mins, maybe something else is drawing extra power outside of your pc.

Noice...reminds me of one of the few things I agree with audiophiles on;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply

https://www.lifewire.com/best-uninterrupted-power-supplies-4142625

https://www.howtogeek.com/161479/how-to-select-a-battery-backup-for-your-computer/

(...not so much for the backup as for sustaining / filtering the power.)

[DirtyVinyl]

Publicado originalmente por cheshirm:

glad you found a fix. but thought I would bring up another forum thread. op had same problem as you do. turned out every time he played the game on his pc AND the refrigerator door opened, the pc would power off. perhaps plug your pc in somewhere on another circuit and see if the problem reoccurs. since the game runs for 20 mins, maybe something else is drawing extra power outside of your pc.

Ill tell you why that was happening to him if you care to know,

If opening the refrigerator door caused his PC to power off, then obviously his PC and refrigerator were on the same circuit, and given that they don't slap 20amp circuits everyone in a home, im also assuming his refrigerator was on the same 15amp circuit as his computer.

As per NEC code 2017 it was required (though now i believe its HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) that all refrigerators be on their own dedicated 20 amp circuit especially if they arent energy efficient because when you open the refrigerator door, there would be a large amperage spike caused by the compressor motor.

Now my computer is on a 15amp general lighting circuit and i know that it is also the highest drawing electronic on that circuit. everything else being LED lights and OLED tv's so i know im good on that front

Publicado originalmente por Yellowbeard:

Publicado originalmente por cheshirm:

glad you found a fix. but thought I would bring up another forum thread. op had same problem as you do. turned out every time he played the game on his pc AND the refrigerator door opened, the pc would power off. perhaps plug your pc in somewhere on another circuit and see if the problem reoccurs. since the game runs for 20 mins, maybe something else is drawing extra power outside of your pc.

Noice...reminds me of one of the few things I agree with audiophiles on;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply

https://www.lifewire.com/best-uninterrupted-power-supplies-4142625

https://www.howtogeek.com/161479/how-to-select-a-battery-backup-for-your-computer/

(...not so much for the backup as for sustaining / filtering the power.)

as for a UPS. right now the computer is on a good surge protector that supports the range of power draw of the computer. but still, yeah i would really like one of those for the added protection and power cleanser.