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Need Help with homebuilt - randomly restarts

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Hey guys,
I built this computer last september after my laptop was stolen by a meth-addicted roomate (oh joy), and in general, she's a beauty. However, since building her, she will randomly restart, something that began immediately after I started using her (aka before time for any viruses to affect my system). I put off seeking help fixing it once the basic google searches of "computer restarts randomly", etc failed to yield any workable solutions, as it wasn't that common of a problem.
However, it now happens a lot more, as I've been playing a lot of Starcraft II, which seems to trigger it. In general, it seems to have been related to high-performance video games. I had thought it was my gpu fan, which I had accidentally blocked with a power cable (fixed that, skyrim stopped restarting), but recently it has acted up again since that fix. Specifically the battlecraft custom map in SCII makes it go nuts.

I've run pcwizard and memtest, and it doesn't seem like my computer is overheating or that my ram is faulty. My components should all match up, and all my fans are working. My system specs are as follows:

Processor: Intel i5-2500K cpu @ 3.30GHz (3.6Ghz) not overclocked
Ram: 8gb (think they're corsairs)
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 560Ti
HD: seagate st31000524AS ATA device 1TB
Mobo: Gigabyte p67X-UD3-B3
PSU: ROSEWILL|RX750-S-B 750W RT
CASE: ROSEWILL|CHALLENGER RT

That should be everything that's at all relevant. I'm not getting a bsod, I'm not getting a restart error message, I have the windows control panel autostart in case of critical error disabled. I'm really hoping its not a bad capacitor/etc, as I was lazy and didnt mail in my product warranties (hopefully I can still do that. Was overwhelmed building a computer for hte first time, got lazy after).

Help me out, guys, I've been a long time fan of the site and forums :) 

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Homebuilt system Master

My guess is the power supply is at fault. Rosewill does not in my opinion have a stellar reputation of making quality power supplies to begin with. Its very likely in my opinion that, the 750 watt rosewill is not able to put out as many watts as it claims to be able to do continuously, and once you begin to play having games you run the usage up and the power supply gives up and shuts down.

Starcraft is a pretty GPU intensive game, and graphics cards by far use more power in the computer than any other component.

750 watts from a quality built power supply is btw more than sufficient for your rig. So if the PSU is the culprit like I expect, theres no reason to buy a higher wattage, just one thats better made.
The best way to confirm this is with another power supply unfortunately.

Okay, this is what I was hoping to hear. Another PSU is a pain to buy on my college student budget, but I can deal if needed. I'm not entirely sure of the output of a power socket relative to a computer - the fact that my monitor, computer, and something else are all plugged into a shitty power strip (may have gotten it for free) wouldn't be causing power supply problems, right? Not sure if power strips have lower wattage or whatnot.

its a cheap psu, and easy to blame. however...

what i cringed at was you saying its starcraft that causes it. starcraft isnt a particularly demanding game on the gpu, ie it wouldnt use much power. what starcraft is demading on is the cpu, which would not require much power either.

so im going to do some guesswork
a) your cpu is no good! (its more than likely not this)
b) your ram isnt *quite* compatible enough, do you have xmp? have u tried using it?
c) the psu, although able to provide enough power for your power hungry video card is somehow not able to provide enough power to your power sipping cpu. by some quirky fault.

let us know how this turns out. im curious myself now.
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Well its not starcraft per se that causes it. It was Skyrim for a little while, but that stopped. Its done it in Rift once or twice (but again, stopped after i found the blocked fan). It only rarely happens in starcraft, never during obvious times (i.e. a big battle), but lately I have been playing battlecraft, which will have armies of several hundred units fighting and spawning at rapid rates. Battlecraft is sure to randomly restart it - sometimes on my first game, sometimes after an hour. There is no rhyme or reason at all.

Sorry for the double post. I'm not going to be able to attempt to do any money-costing repairs for a few days. What specifically should I attempt while I am fisically challenged? This was my first homebuild, so there is a possibility I put the cpu in wrong or something silly, but it generally HAS worked for everything except these restarts.
I will try the plug into the wall advice next time I go play Battlecraft. I don't have XMP, and I'll look into what it is.
The only other outlier I haven't mentioned is that I am running a bootleg version of windows 7 x64. On computer startup I get a "not genuine copy of windows" message. The os has seemed to work very well, though. (running bootleg because I was damned if I was going to pay 100$ for software that I /had/ that was stolen with my laptop.)
Homebuilt system Master

Jahkral said:
Sorry for the double post. I'm not going to be able to attempt to do any money-costing repairs for a few days. What specifically should I attempt while I am fisically challenged? This was my first homebuild, so there is a possibility I put the cpu in wrong or something silly, but it generally HAS worked for everything except these restarts.
I will try the plug into the wall advice next time I go play Battlecraft. I don't have XMP, and I'll look into what it is.
The only other outlier I haven't mentioned is that I am running a bootleg version of windows 7 x64. On computer startup I get a "not genuine copy of windows" message. The os has seemed to work very well, though. (running bootleg because I was damned if I was going to pay 100$ for software that I /had/ that was stolen with my laptop.)



You know that you don't necessarily have to run a bootleg copy of Windows. IF you're a college student, you should ask someone in your campus IT department if your college participates in the Microsoft Academic Alliance program. I get Windows7, Vista, XP, 98, and even 95 for free thru the program, I have keys for all of them and I can use them as many times as I want completely free on my computers. *wink wink*.. Just don't try to sell em, apparently my college had a student who thought he found a great way to make some money, I don't think hes out of jail yet....

As for testing your power supply, again,, if your college has an IT department, you might be able to get some other help. Our school runs an open clinic, students in the IT field (like me) will charge you 70 bucks, and run diagnostics, tell you exactly whats wrong with it and fix it. (Staples I think charged my mother 150 for the same privilege) Although any necessary parts would be on your dime, but you will pay no more than 70. Since you're in college, you probably have a lot of options open to you that you don't even know about.

Surely somebody has a PSU they could swap into your machine, we do...
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