First Build, Random Shutdowns

[Speedanimal]

Hello, about a week ago I asked on here and got some suggestions towards parts for me first ever self computer build. I ordered it, and on Wednesday put it all together. Up until last night I was loving it, was playing Eve Online, and was loving how beautiful that game is with a decent graphics card.

My system:
i5 3570k
Asus P8z77-VLK
G Skillz 4gb 1600 ddr ram (4 sticks)
Evga GTX 570 HD
Seagate 1TB
LG DVD-rw
Corsair 650W
Cooler Master HAF 912 Case, and Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler
Tp-link wireless lan card thing (since I have to use wireless here at home)

Anyways, my issue; up until last night nothing had crashed with my build. However, while playing Eve online my screen suddenly went black (my Asus monitor), but from what I could see the rest of my system was still on. (All the fans, and the lights on the front of the case) So I had to reset it the "rough" way with the power button (even though I've learned shift+u+r+enter can get it to reset if the screen goes black). I restarted and tried playing the game again, with the same issue happening just after logging in. So I tried swapping my dvi plug from the 570 to my mobo (the video card was still plugged in) and restart but I didn't get any picture from that. (Probably should have taken out the video card) So after messing with that I figured it was either my card, the monitor, or the game (which I repaired and didn't find a difference)...

So while using the internet to try and research the problem (since the crash had only happened in game), it happened again. But this time the whole system shut down, and then rebooted itself, leading me to what looked like one of the Asus mobo screens saying "power supply surges detected on last power on" and that the mobo had reset to protect the system. This part really confused me because from what I could tell the first issue wasn't linked to the psu... So I pushed f1 to enter the bios and had it set everything back to default (I hadn't changed anything from what I know though) it restarted and I tried opening the game again. Just as I was about to enter the log in screen, same thing happened, full reboot and the power supply message.

So what am I looking at here, for now the computer is unplugged. I don't have another computer to test parts on. I guess my plan is to pull the video card and see if the problem persists without it. And if they do then that would mean the power supply?

Thanks in advance...

 

[C12Friedman]

My first step here would be to suspect a connection on the mobo is not fully seated (could be an individual wire into the connector also) check that first. Especially on the 24 pin and on the GPU connectors. If no loose wires or connectors are found...
you are going to have to start the RMA process for your PSU with Corsair - it happens even with the highest rated PSU's sometimes. The 650W should easily handle your system so that would be my next step.
Summary: Check connections - if that fails, begin contact with Corsair, start the RMA process.
You can swap PSU's to ensure that is the problem but do take into consideration that you may be correcting a simple connection problem so do check those connections first.

 

[Speedanimal]

Alright I'll start with that, thanks! I suspect that what I'm looking at especially are ground wires?

In addition, I forgot to mention that after the system did its first reboot (from what the motherboard said was a power surge) on the next startup CHKDSK requested to check my drive. (My laptop has always had a problem with that, so I was loving that message on the screen ) However, it looked like it moved a lot of files (mentioned several things to be "orphaned") I'm not sure if that was from the reset of the motherboard or what...but just to add to the list so to say sadly.

 

[Speedanimal]

Update:

So I checked all the connections I could find, and all of them seemed ok. They all seemed to be fully plugged in, and no prongs or pins seemed to be missing. This included the main mobo power, and the gpu connectors. So I choose to start the computer up again; my motherboard still gives the single beep which I assume is fine and proceeded to view my event log to see if something had come up. I found that an error log for a WLAN Extensibility module has stopped working has come up nearly a half dozen times. Then the previous issue returned with the system rebooting to give me the power surge message again. I figured I would take a picture of it this time, in the case that the information at the top was important. Since the information at the bottom is obvious.

Now from the research I did last night when this first happened, this almost always seemed to be a power supply failure...but I have a question. Is it possible that a power strip with some surge protection feature could cause this? I've had the strip for about a year and haven't experienced any problems with it from what I've seen, but just thought I'd ask. I'm not sure if I want to test it by plugging straight into the wall, in the case that the strip is actually helping to save my system. Is there a way to do a test on the power supply without it being connected to a computer? Or do I just need to dial the number and get on Corsair's tech support?

 

[C12Friedman]

First, the power going into the PSU doesn't affect the PSU's output. Modern PSU's are capable of sensing input voltages and compensating for them (a wide range of compensation) so a faulty surge protector is an unlikely issue (it isn't impossible if the surge protector is providing too little power somehow - less than 100V AC).
You can test the PSU by jumping a green and black pin (that will make the PSU think it's plugged into a computer) and then taking voltage readings from the various sources - The pin out voltages for an ATX PSU can be found here
http://www.pcpower.com/downloads/S50EPS-2_3857.JPG
and how to jump the PSU found here
http://seasonicusa.com/RMABeta/JumpStart/JS.pdf

 

[Speedanimal]

Update:

Taking a multimeter I tested the connections in comparison to that diagram. I had already done the "paperclip test" to ensure the fan still runs, which it does.

The Orange ports gave me 3.39V rather than 3.3 (I assume not a big issue, but with a computer I don't know)
The Red ports gave me 5.10V rather than 5.0 (Again only slightly different)
But the obvious fault were with the yellow ports which only gave me 10.39 rather than 12V.

After I checked the wall outlet to make sure it was fine, and it was. So I guess the issue is that that power supply isn't pulling enough voltage. I guess this would explain the first black screens where perhaps the GPU didn't get enough power so it cut out...

 

[Speedanimal]

The only question I have now is if it is a better idea to request an RMA from Corsair (which I have done already), or to request one from Newegg (where I bought the Corsair psu from). Or will there be any difference?

 

[Speedanimal]

Best answer selected by Speedanimal.