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PC randomly turns off, will not boot for a period

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Cruv

New Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2016
Hello everyone!

Recently I had a little problem with my PC. It started a few days ago when I downloaded NFS Most Wanted when it was free on the Origin store. After playing it for approximately 3-5 minutes, my PC would turn itself off automatically. By turning itself off, it's as though I held my power button and turn it off, EXCEPT that the power/fans were still running (power button was still flashing white) but everything (music, games, etc) turned off and my monitor would turn itself into power saving mode.

When I would try to boot the PC, it would not turn itself on (my monitor would stay in power saving mode) and would not reach POST or the BIOS. My fans and all ran, with the power notification except that something else was different this time.

On my case (Corsair 200R) there is another flashing light beside the power button (which I have no idea what it is, contacted CORSAIR and awaiting their replies) which usually flashes around when my computer boots up. This time round, this light does not turn up. I tried messing around, pulling out the PSU cable and inserting it back in 3 minutes later but nothing works, unless I leave it alone for approximately >30 minutes before I boot it back up. Everything runs as fine, no memory problems or any errors but it took a little longer than my usual boot.

Just today, I tried running NFS Rivals and the same thing happened again! I have no clue as to what is going on. I tried other games such as Battlefield 3/4, CS:GO, FIFA 15 but I couldn't replicate the problem and seems that it's only on NFS Rivals / Most Wanted.

I'm out of luck so I decided to see what you experts think of this.

These are my system specs

Corsair 200R

ASrock H81M-HDS R2
Intel i3-4160
Sapphire R9 280
Crucial 8gb ddr3 1600
Western Digital Blue 1TB
Corsair CX500M PSU

I'm thinking it's due to the power supply (also what others stated) in another forum.
 
Have you tried looking at the manual to see what that light is for?

The first thing I would think is the PSU as well. The CX series from Corsair, while plenty serviceable, are not of great quality. If you have another PSU to test with, I would try that.

But, you mention it only happens in one series of game which takes my focus away from the PSU... have you tried swapping drivers? Either use the latest or roll back a version or two?
 
I agree with ED, though it does sound like a driver issue it could be the Psu. Try doing as ED suggested with a driver swap and or driver sweep and clean install. You could also try uninstalling the game and re installing it.
 
I'm not a gamer so maybe someone else has more insight into the various games mentioned by OP that trigger or don't trigger this problem. Is there a significant difference between NFS Rivals and the other games OP lists in how they place demand on the system, like GPU vs. CPU? I note he is running a Radeon 280 which sucks a lot of juice if it's being used hard. And he is powering the system with a Corsair CX500 PSU. Certainly, a good quality 500W PSU should be able to handle a system with only one power demanding GPU but there wouldn't be a lot of headroom. And the CX series is not the highest quality line. If t he PSU is getting long in the tooth then maybe . . .
 
Agreed Trents and the Psu would be the first thing I would be pointing at if the issues happened in every game. It does seem to be a more specific problem to the game itself.
 
Hello everyone.

I got a reply from CORSAIR today.

This is what they said:

"have never encountered such problems before with GPU intensive games like Battlefield 3/4 etc. " - Is your GPU driver up to date?

"my monitor has nothing, no POST, does not get pass the BIOS screen." - It is possible that your GPU is causing the boot issues.

"When my system is running normally, the left indicator tends to blink every once in awhile." - That is your HDD activity light.


I'm going to try update my GPU drivers and update you guys again. But I'm curious to how my GPU drivers can prevent my PC from booting up? Or how does it affect the HDD?
 
Hello everyone.

I got a reply from CORSAIR today.

This is what they said:

"have never encountered such problems before with GPU intensive games like Battlefield 3/4 etc. " - Is your GPU driver up to date?

"my monitor has nothing, no POST, does not get pass the BIOS screen." - It is possible that your GPU is causing the boot issues.

"When my system is running normally, the left indicator tends to blink every once in awhile." - That is your HDD activity light.


I'm going to try update my GPU drivers and update you guys again. But I'm curious to how my GPU drivers can prevent my PC from booting up? Or how does it affect the HDD?

You need to go to power options in the control panel and disable all sleeping stuff!
 
Hi guys.

I have tried reinstalling my drivers to the latest version and ran NFS again. This time, it lasted 30 minutes before it decided to shut itself off again.

Should I be looking at a new PSU now?

Also, I would like to ask: is it possible that it could be due to the power extension cord? I currently have a extension cord which has the monitor and my PC plugged in to it. It's a rather old and shabby one but I found it lying around so I decided to use it previously. Could this be one of the factors?
 
At this point your best bet is to eliminate all possible issues with power. Have the monitor plugged into a dedicated socket. Yes cheap extensions can cause issues and it could be yours.
 
Hello everyone!

Recently I had a little problem with my PC. It started a few days ago when I downloaded NFS Most Wanted when it was free on the Origin store. After playing it for approximately 3-5 minutes, my PC would turn itself off automatically. By turning itself off, it's as though I held my power button and turn it off, EXCEPT that the power/fans were still running (power button was still flashing white) but everything (music, games, etc) turned off and my monitor would turn itself into power saving mode.

When I would try to boot the PC, it would not turn itself on (my monitor would stay in power saving mode) and would not reach POST or the BIOS. My fans and all ran, with the power notification except that something else was different this time.

On my case (Corsair 200R) there is another flashing light beside the power button (which I have no idea what it is, contacted CORSAIR and awaiting their replies) which usually flashes around when my computer boots up. This time round, this light does not turn up. I tried messing around, pulling out the PSU cable and inserting it back in 3 minutes later but nothing works, unless I leave it alone for approximately >30 minutes before I boot it back up. Everything runs as fine, no memory problems or any errors but it took a little longer than my usual boot.

Just today, I tried running NFS Rivals and the same thing happened again! I have no clue as to what is going on. I tried other games such as Battlefield 3/4, CS:GO, FIFA 15 but I couldn't replicate the problem and seems that it's only on NFS Rivals / Most Wanted.

I'm out of luck so I decided to see what you experts think of this.

These are my system specs

Corsair 200R

ASrock H81M-HDS R2
Intel i3-4160
Sapphire R9 280
Crucial 8gb ddr3 1600
Western Digital Blue 1TB
Corsair CX500M PSU

I'm thinking it's due to the power supply (also what others stated) in another forum.

This other "flashing light" may be the hard drive activity indicator light.
 
This other "flashing light" may be the hard drive activity indicator light.

Hi friend! Yes I figured that out after CORSAIR replied to me. So apparently when my com crashes and fails to boot, the HDD activity light stops working. Not sure how is it related to GPU issues though.


What are the temps when the system shuts down?

My temps are generally in the mid 50s-60s degree celcius. I was playing NFS and looking at Speccy every 3 minute and the last time I saw it was around 65degree celcius for my GPU and 59 degree celcius for my CPU (about 2 minutes pre-shut down)

At this point your best bet is to eliminate all possible issues with power. Have the monitor plugged into a dedicated socket. Yes cheap extensions can cause issues and it could be yours.

I will try that this weekend when I'm home. Going to buy a proper power extension cord! Hopefully it resolves the issues.


Right now, CORSAIR replied to me stating that my PSU is more than capable to power my system. However they did not offer a replacement or an alternative to this situation so I guess I'll have to see how it goes..
 
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