Seemingly random shut-downs... PSU? MOBO?

[Haegej]

So I built my system detailed below about 2.5 years ago and it's been running overall well until relatively recently.

- MOBO: Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core, Model # HDZ965FBGMBOX
- PSU: Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 Modular Active PFC Power Supply
- RAM:
...........G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1333 (PC3 10666), Model #: F3-10666CL8D-4GBRM
...........G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666), Model #: F3-10666CL7D-8GBRH
- Vid.Card: Sapphire 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support
- HDD (OS): Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate


A few months I started getting some occasional "Display driver stopped responding, but has recovered" error messages. They increased in frequency, with no real direct cause (i.e. I didn't install any new drivers, since the ones I was using were stable for everything). However, it seemed that they had subsided.

More recently, about a month or so ago, I started having essentially random reboots (no error messages, no BSOD, etc.); the majority of times it occurred at some point while playing a game, which made me think it could be the video card. However, there were no artifacts and it even occurred with graphically non-intense games and typical web browsing.

This past week, the random reboots have increased in frequency and sometimes lead to a reboot with no monitor output (no video signal), with one of the fans spinning relatively loud (not sure which one at the moment), even though, otherwise, the tower and components seemed to be on and functioning.

Also, in general, it seems that some programs (i.e. Skype) aren't running as smoothly as before, starting up, etc.

From reading other posts, it seems like the issue may lie with my motherboard or PSU. I tested both sets of RAM individually, but their removal didn't resolve the issue.

I've run MalwareBytes, Spybot, and use MS Security Essentials. Spybot found a variety of items, took care of it, and the following boot-up everything was running great... but within a day, it was back to the same issues.

In dealing with the aforementioned issues, I'm not sure exactly where to look now (i.e. MOBO, PSU, etc.), but below is a picture of a bunch of parameters (voltages, temps, etc.) using CPUID... if anyone could provide any feedback to these parameters or to the general issues I've been having (i.e. if they've experienced such issues before), it would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

-Joe

 

[benji720]

Try downloading and running Prime95 which will stress test your machine. Your CPU temps look high to me. Keep HWMonitor open while Prime95 is running and record how high it gets. Based on your symptoms and description it sounds like it could be an issue with overheating.

You may also want to try cleaning fans and vents (particularly the CPU fan) and reapplying new thermal grease between your heatsink and fan.

 

[Haegej]

Thanks for the quick reply... forgot to mention that the numbers you see for the CPU temps (and all other parameters) aren't at idle (when only necessary programs are being run) but were taken with Guild Wars 2 open/minimized and running for about 30 minutes.

At idle, without any seriously taxing programs running, the CPU temps for each core are around 48-52 °C.

Regardless, I'll work with your suggestions, thanks!

 

[Haegej]

Downloaded and ran Prime95 and did 2 of the "torture tests": Small FFTs and Blend, 4 threads. The only changes I noticed were slightly elevated CPU temps (running about 78 °C).

Ran each test for about 5 minutes (I would presume, based on the frequency of problems I've had in the past week that this would be enough time to detect CPU/RAM issues). Let me know if you think that 5 minutes is still too short; also, no errors or warnings were reported by Prime95 during the Blend test.



Update: Also, sometimes when the computer is shut down appropriately and restarted, I'll get a black screen even though everything seems to be functioning in the tower (lights, fans, etc.)... sometimes takes either time or a few tries to get it to boot up. Just now it was happening, black screen... decided to turn the monitor off/on and then the screen loaded with the "Windows did not shut down properly..." screen.

 

[benji720]

Hmm... Very bizarre. Do you have a spare PSU you can try? The main idea behind prime95 was to get your cpu stressed and 5 minutes is enough to check that out. You're probably right that it's either your mobo or PSU -but- I've also seen this with a graphics card. You may also want to upgrade the drivers on that if you haven't already done so!

 

[arzbhatia]

I had this problem with my old computer. Changed the PSU and it got fixed

 

[Haegej]

Yeah I had updated my video card drivers, but it didn't seem to help; I'll be changing the PSU out to see if that resolves the issue.

If anyone else is reading, don't hesitate to indicate if you've experience similar symptoms, especially if you resolved the issue with replacing a piece of hardware, thanks!