System Restarts Desperate for help

[CharismaRise]

Hi everyone,

I've recently built a brand new system:

ASUS Crossfire IV Formula
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T 3.2GHz
8Gb G.SKILL Rip Jaw
ASUS ENGTX480 1536Mb
OCZ stealthxstream ultra-silent 750W
Cooler Master HAF932 Full Tower
Seagate 2TB Green 5400RPM (storage)
Western Digital 500Gb Blue 7200RPM (primary)

I've had a lot of issues of getting the RAM sticks to pass memtest86 so I kept exchanging them. Eventually I got two perfect ones (tech guys told me I just got bad luck).

I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise with SP1 and all updates. BIOS is updated to the most recent stable version 1304 I believe. Video and chipset drivers are up to date.

The problem is that when I tried to play Crysis 2 or Mafia 2, PC would simply reboot sometimes. At some point it went away and I was able to even beat Crysis 2. But now the problem came back and PC restarts once it reaches particular point. This only happens in very demanding games, once it warms up. I leave my PC over night doing stuff - no problem.

My temperatures under highest load:

CPU ~44 C
Video ~80 C

Please suggest what should I test as I see no other possibility other than the PSU (I know nothing about OCZ PSU's). Maybe my system is underpowered? Pretty desperate....

 

[r3xx3r]

your power supply is enough. OCZ isnt known for their power supplies, so it might be bad, but i doubt it. If you want to test it you can purchase a power supply tester which is about $20 from newegg.com and will tell you if any part of it is dead/broken

run memtest86+ again for 3 to 4 passes, if it passes ur ram is fine

run prime95 for at least 5 hours and see if your computer crashes or if one of the workers stops. if it does crash/worker stops ur cpu is unstable. if not, it is fine

are you overclocking your RAM/CPU/Video Card??

run this program to see if your Western Digital Hard Drive is bad

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&sid=3&lang=en

and post all of your results

 

[rvilkman]

I would have to say that the most likely problem is the PSU. The overcurrent protection kicks in and shuts off the machine.
You probably were just lucky playing crysis that you didn't hit a location where the card was drawing too much power at some point in time.
So it might be that the four 12V rails with 18A each is the issue when your card needs assuming 42A or so. Couldn't find exact numbers but that is about what GTX580's take so it should be close. So maybe a single rail PSU in the 650-750W range would be sufficient.

Wattagewise, like usually is the case, you are fine. 700 or 750W is enough for your system. But the power draw ( amps ) of the GTX480 is massive.

Also if it was the GPU overheating I believe it would simply throttle and you would lose frame rates.

 

[grody]

Epic tripple post.

Edit: My bad. Quintuple post.

 

[jmills204]

Should be an easy way to solve this. Sounds like it is either an unstable processor (run prime95 and see if it crashes) or a defective PSU. 750 watts should be enough but the 480s require enough power to light a small house, so it could be surging and overwhelming the PSU. Like rvilkman says, it isn't always about total wattage with the PSUs.

Also if it is the GPU overheating, you will hear the failsafe's on the GTX 4** series kick in, and it wil be loud. I have a 470 and I've heard it once when i forgot the fan speed was on manual and on the lowest speed. You'll hear the GPU fan start screaming very loudly. If you aren't hearing this happen the GPU isn't overheating.

So if that isn't happening and your processor passes prime95, it's most likely your PSU.

Oh also, when your computer "restarts" does it literally "suddenly go black, and then the BIOS appear? Or does it go a funny color, or show windows shutting down?"