NVidia GTX 750 Ti causing shutdowns Optiplex 7020

The basics-

I just bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7020 with 512GB SSD & Windows 10 Pro to replace my old Win7 PC. I spent time transferring files over, installing programs/games/etc. Once satisfied with that I took the old PC apart to salvage a few components into the new PC- Enermax Tomahawk 500W PSU(with 24-8 pin adapter), some cooling fans, DVD drive & an eVGA NVidia GTX 750 Ti SC.

Almost immediate problems- the system would shut down and reboot within 30 seconds-5 minutes of starting Windows. I ruled out the PSU by swapping in the original 290W Dell, same issue. Ruled out the second DVD drive by unplugging it.

It's the video card. Taking it out and going back to the onboard Intel VGA solved the shutdown issues, have had none since then. I don't believe the card was damaged in any way when moving it. I'm 90% certain it's a power issue, the motherboard may not have been offering enough needed power. I have changed to "high performance" power settings. My understanding regarding this PC & card are that even the 290 should be enough to power it.

HOWEVER I am only 95% sure on this and would rather get some extra input before I put the card back in, in case it's some other problem(BIOS, generic default video drivers hating the card, other software issue).

The GTX 750 ti isn't a high-powered card. It has no auxiliary PCI-E power connections. It's rated at 60W, which isn't much less than the maximum supported through the PCI-E X16 slot (75W).

What drivers were you using?

None, AFAIK, I hadn't installed any NVidia drivers yet. Unless Win10 has its own drivers? I did find it odd I was in 16:9 resolution when I started with this card, rather than something lower.

Going through Event Viewer I found these right before shutdowns. Relevant? -

File System Filter 'npsvctrig' (10.0, ‎2025‎-‎01‎-‎05T22:41:12.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

File System Filter 'FileCrypt' (10.0, ‎2002‎-‎03‎-‎01T07:12:42.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

You have to install the NVIDIA driver first.

You can check if you have the driver installed just by right clicking anywhere on the desktop and look for "NVIDIA Control Panel". If it's there, it's installed.

Interesting. I'm not sure what drivers you'd get from a clean Windows install (if that's what you did), or from Windows Update (if you haven't prevented driver updates).

If the card is using the Microsoft Basic drivers, it should have horrible performance, but I wouldn't expect that to crash the PC. My expectations could be wrong, though.

Supposedly, the GTX 750 ti is supported by the latest drivers (NVIDIA DRIVERS GeForce Game Ready Driver WHQL). That should be taken with a grain of salt, because nVidia driver search has been known to give bogus results. However, if the drivers don't support the card, they won't install. No risk.

diosoth said:

(snip)


Tried again with the latest release. No improvement. Some with this specific shutdown issue reported success using this-

GitHub - Sycnex/Windows10Debloater: Script to remove Windows 10 bloatware.

I'm going to attempt that. This is clearly a software issue that I do not intend to put up with.

Seems pretty random, but I wish you the best of luck.

What about the PCI slot having a dirty connection? The EV entries make me think it's purely software but you never know...

bobkn said:

Interesting. I'm not sure what drivers you'd get from a clean Windows install (if that's what you did), or from Windows Update (if you haven't prevented driver updates).



If the card is using the Microsoft Basic drivers, it should have horrible performance, but I wouldn't expect that to crash the PC. My expectations could be wrong, though.

Supposedly, the GTX 750 ti is supported by the latest drivers (NVIDIA DRIVERS GeForce Game Ready Driver WHQL). That should be taken with a grain of salt, because nVidia driver search has been known to give bogus results. However, if the drivers don't support the card, they won't install. No risk.

They push out DCH drivers from Windows Update now. My system with a GT 710 got a DCH driver (456.71) straight from WU.

I got NVidia drivers for the card when I reinstalled Win7 on my old PC yesterday. I think it detects what you have and grabs them in the updates package. They were old drivers, however. I had to update them to get Skyrim working.

I think instead of spending a week or so trying random older drivers, I'll get a better GPU, I should be able to get a used one for $80 or so that beats the 750 Ti's specs. I can always sell the 750 once I've got that.