PC Restarting For No Real Reason

Victoria_2

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Oct 26, 2015
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Hello! The past couple of weeks, my computer has been restarting itself randomly. Most of the time it's when I'm gaming while having Chrome open (I am kinda bad about having a lot of tabs open), but not always? Today it did it again, and I was only watching a show on Chrome while eating my dinner. When I check the Event Viewer, I can't find any real source for this issue.

The Critical error that pops up is Kernel-Power, Event ID 41, task category (63). I did some research and it sounds like Windows has no idea what happened. Nothing else loses power around me, not even my two monitors, the computer just up and restarts. I checked the entire list of events, and I seem to be getting a lot of "innocuous errors". A ton of DistributedCOMs (10016), a couple EventLogs (6008). Two come up as warnings, BTHUSB (34) and Win32k (263), but my research into those hasn't brought up any red flags.

This computer is brand new, I bought it last August. My boyfriend and I added a SSD, but other than that, we didn't fiddle with it. My assumption was that maybe the two small surge protectors I was using were starting to die, so I replaced them yesterday with a more modern one that holds 10 plugs, though I don't use every slot (as a kid I was told that it's not smart to fill up a surge protector, though that may be outdated knowledge at this point lol). Seeing as it restarted today, I'm guessing I didn't fix the issue. Though I'm sure it wasn't a waste of money to fix that anyway. When it does restart like this, I've never had it happen more than once in a day except one time, it happened twice.

My absolute original assumption was that it was playing ARK. I can't play ARK with ANYTHING else open or I'd get crap, either ARK itself would crash or my pc would restart, or whatever I had going on would crash along with ARK. So my boyfriend had me keep the task manager up as I played, and it does use a ridiculous amount of CPU and Memory, but then the pc would restart if I was playing other games, so I figured it was something else. Like I said, I've had this since August and it's never fussed about me multi-tasking before.

If anyone has any ideas, or needs any other info, please let me know! Thanks!
-Victoria

My specs:
Windows 10 Home 64bit
AMD A10 Quad Core
Lenovo Bantry CRB Mobo
16GB DDR3 mem
AMD Radeon R7350
2TB HDD
Sandisk SSD
 
Solution


That seems to be the problem. Replace it with a quality unit from EVGA, Seasonic or Corsair. Should be well rated. 280W is pretty low.
I do not think it makes close to 500W. Could you open the PC, locate the PSU and report back with its model and make, or what is written underneath the 12V column? I could not find details on its PSU online.

When the GPU is under stress, it attempts to draw more power and if the PSU cannot give that power it restarts.
 

Victoria_2

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Oct 26, 2015
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Ahhh, gotcha.
FSP Group Inc. Model # FSP280-40PA
States output as 280W
 


That seems to be the problem. Replace it with a quality unit from EVGA, Seasonic or Corsair. Should be well rated. 280W is pretty low.
 
Solution

Victoria_2

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Oct 26, 2015
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4,510


Is it? Hmm. I admit I don't know much about hardware stuff, I'm more a software gal. Do you suggest any particular wattage to shoot for?
 


Roughly balling, I would go for a 550 to 650 just to futureproof and be safe. Should be well rated, remember!
 

Victoria_2

Reputable
Oct 26, 2015
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Sounds good! Tysm! I was convinced this would be some long, drawn-out diagnostic test. Glad it's a relatively easy fix. XD