PC Sudden Crashes - Ongoing For 5 Months

[Pavol]

Hello,

Since that start of 2015 I have had sudden crashes while gaming like if there was a power cut. The PC automatically reboots and says Asus anti-surge was triggered to help prevent damage from an unstable power supply unit.

I am planning on buying a new PSU in a few weeks, but it will be expensive and I am not 100% sure it will fix anything, so I am wondering if anyone else has had this issue and if it could be caused by something else? Many people have told me it could be related to the RAM, the motherboard or the hard drive.

I ran a scan on the RAM, it took 8 hours and no issue were found, so it probably isn't that. I don't know how I could check the motherboard and I am yet to scan the hard drive for errors.

Some people suggested turning anti-surge off, I tried that and the PC started freezing instead of crashing.

These crashes only happened with specific games, they are with WoW, Chivalry & Insurgency.
I have already checked for temperature issues, the GPU never goes above 70 degrees celcius, the CPU never goes above 55 and everything stays at a sensible temprature.

The hard drive has been wiped about 5 times, have used multiple virus scanners, there isn't any software causing this. It crashes if Windows is cleanly installed or if I have everything installed.

Here's the specs:

GTX 970
i7 3770k 3.5GHz
16GB RAM - Kingston Hyper X Genesis
PSU 500w corsair bronze
Asus P8Z77-V LX Motherboard

Last search for a fix, if there are no replies to this I'll get the PSU and hope that fixes this issue, have also messaged someone who had this issue on another website, waiting on a reply for that...

Please don't reply with a stupid answer and just say what you think it could be, please reply if you understand computers and know what this issue is related to. People have said its because I use Windows 7 and not 8, people have said I have too much RAM. Not the best help.

[battybuddy]

I've been having this problem too, except lately my computer's been freezing after it crashes with EVERY steam game it seems, and I need to hard reset.
Sorry I wanted to subscribe and see if anyone has answers for either of us.

[_I_]

how are the temps?

did you get the correct drivers from asus?
http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P8Z77V_LX/HelpDesk_Download/

[Pavol]

Escrito originalmente por _I_:

how are the temps?

did you get the correct drivers from asus?
http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P8Z77V_LX/HelpDesk_Download/

Have all the correct drivers and the temps are all good. The crashes aren't even caused by the most intensive games, just certain games trigger something that causes it to reset ( or freeze if anti-surge is disabled).

One person suggested a stress test on the entire system, so I downloaded Prime 95 and FurMark and ran them simultaneously, the PC crashed in 10 seconds. This crash broke the operating system and made the PC boot into a blue screen, so I had to re install windows.

I ran the same test yesterday after weeks of leaving the PC turned off, the test worked for 20 minutes, then it crashed again, so I unplugged the PC and left it off again.

Most people have told me it will be the PSU, but I have read forums where people replaced the PSU and still got the crashes. So it could be the motherboard or maybe something else.

I have seen literally hundreds of people with this issue online, a lot of these people play WoW and Blizzard are aware of it and looking towards fixing it, but it is not only in WoW, but that game does tend to cause the crashes on a regular basis.

I'm still waiting on a reply from someone who made a post about this, they tried a few solutions and then they stopped posting things, so maybe they got it fixed and just didn't tell anyone.

Some people said my PSU isn't powerful enough, while others say it is. So I might get an overkill unit to try and fix that, but it will got quite a lot of money, so finding a fix before I order it would help, not sure if you can send back PSU's because you don't need them anymore.

[_I_]

then its most likely a heat issue
cx500 is fine for that setup

what cpu cooler and case?

[Pavol]

Escrito originalmente por _I_:

then its most likely a heat issue
cx500 is fine for that setup

what cpu cooler and case?

It is not a heat issue, I ran HWMonitor while testing, nothing got hot.

Not sure about the name of the CPU cooler, is it hi800 or something? Case is NZXT H440

[_I_]

corsair h80i isnt that great of a cpu cooler (i series is known for pump noise)
its not much better than a 212evo (best cooler under $50)

the case should be fine
make sure all of the fans are working

run hwmonitor, play a game for a few minutes
then check hwmonitor for max cpu and gpu temps
i5 and gpus are good to 90-100c before they will throttle

[FluffyPinkDecoyBunny]

Try plugging the computer into another surge protector or outlet. Generally overheating should cause the computer to power off and you'll need to manually turn it back on.

Power issues can cause the computer to power down and back up on its own (like if the power in the house goes out for a split second, the computer will power off and back on) or completely power off.

If you already are monitoring temps and nothing seems out of the ordinary to be causing issues, then start looking elsewhere.

Bad power can cause problems to electronics. I've seen bad power blow out ports on POS (point of sale) registers and cause other odd issues - including power off and back on. One of two ways we helped customers fix this problem was get them a line conditioner for the location they were plugging the register into. The other way was to get them to plug the register into another outlet and get the problematic one looked at by an electrician.

I'm not saying you're having this issue with power, but it never hurts to try all your options out.