Computer randomly restarts without warning, possible psu or gpu, help please :)

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Aug 25, 2014
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Ive limited the problem to either my psu or gpu. I thought it might be the motherboard so I tried a different graphics card in the computer and it runs fine with no crashing. the video card I tested though was a gt430 with no 6 pin connector.

I plugged my radeon hd 6850 back in and it will randomly restart the system. Everything litterally shuts off like a hard reboot. This leads me to believe either my psu is failing to deliver the proper power to the graphics card or the 6850 is the problem itself.

It will crash under load or just idling. its completely random. it might no crash for days then crash like 5 times within half an hour.

Its not an overheating problem for sure as I have tested and concluded the heat to be fine.

I could not replicate the crashing with a gpu stress test and what I find weird is it crashs at idle sometimes. Does this eliminate the psu ?

any help would be appreciated
 
Solution
That card is happy with a 500watt psu or higher. Now is the corsair PSU a CX/CXM series or something else. The corsair CX series PSUs have been proven to have used inferior capacitors that break down under heavy use, so if you have been gaiming with this card for a year or more then it is completley possible that the PSU is no longer able to keep up with the card.

So at this point you are still left with the GPU or PSU being your problem. You will either have to test replacement parts or test your parts on a buddies computer. Just make sure the PSU and the Video card is equal to yours, testing a low power video card will not push the PSU hard enough to test it.
That card is happy with a 500watt psu or higher. Now is the corsair PSU a CX/CXM series or something else. The corsair CX series PSUs have been proven to have used inferior capacitors that break down under heavy use, so if you have been gaiming with this card for a year or more then it is completley possible that the PSU is no longer able to keep up with the card.

So at this point you are still left with the GPU or PSU being your problem. You will either have to test replacement parts or test your parts on a buddies computer. Just make sure the PSU and the Video card is equal to yours, testing a low power video card will not push the PSU hard enough to test it.
 
Solution