PC restarting when gaming

lancvanc

Prominent
Nov 27, 2017
5
0
520
I got my PC in last year october, and had no problem with it for a good while, played AAA games without any problems on 1080p ultra settings. The thing started this summer, i thought it was probably overheating due to the heat, so i didnt bother with it, i didnt had much free time at that time anyways. Got back to gaming this september and the issue was still there, after a while the PC restarted during gaming. Since then i suffer from it (yea i know i should've looked into it long time ago). It only occurs under gaming, first only on heavy games like Witcher 3, now i get it on CSGO too. There's a moment of sudden blackout, like it lost electricity, then it restarts right away. No errors in eventlog, it only says unexpected shutdown. I noticed if i leave the window behind my PC open, it won't occur, even if i had a restart like this before when the window was closed.(i've been gaming like this for a while) I didn't notice any overheating issue on HWmonitor and Speccy, so i dont know why this trick was working, all fans are working aswell.

My PC:
Gigabyte GA-H170-D3H
Intel i5 6500
2x4 GB DDR4 RAM Kingston HyperX
Samsung 850 Evo 250 GB SSD
WD10EZEX 1 TB HDD
Gigabyte GTX 1060 WF2OC 6GB
Super Flower Leadex Platinum 550W
Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 Case

I didn't OC anything, the GPU is on stock OC probably. Nvidia driver is up to dated. I also noticed there's a really quiet high pitched sound coming out of the PSU when the PC is off, not sure if it means anything.

I don't know if its a GPU or PSU issue.. Any ideas?
 

toshibitsu

Distinguished
Either the PSU is malfunctioning & the draw from the GPU while gaming causes it to restart... or possibly from all that gaming on ultra settings has been heating up the card pretty good & the thermal paste on it is worn out. I'd recommend pulling off the heatsink and replacing the thermal paste with something good (arctic silver, kryonaut, etc). I would probably also do the same with the CPU just to make sure.
 

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador

Suggesting to repaste the CPU/GPU seems premature given the OP said he didn't see any evidence of overheating in HWMonitor (especially given that repasting the GPU would possibly void warranty).

I would agree that a defective PSU seems the most likely culprit.
 

lancvanc

Prominent
Nov 27, 2017
5
0
520


For the first time ever my PC did this kind of restart now when i wasn't gaming, i was just watching some gaming streams. After this I started backing up stuff to my HDD just in case, and IT DID AGAIN, same restart. Does this mean it must be really the PSU failing?