Crashing randomly during high power pulling tasks

Thornton · 06 May 2021

Before I go any further, yes, I know this screams PSU problem, and I think youre right, but I am wondering if there is a concrete way to find out. I had a bad power surge a few weeks ago and since then, during high power tasks the computer will with little to no obvious foresight just shut down. Now, I can only trigger this with graphics related tasks but the problem only occurs when the 2 graphics cards are pulling max capacity. I have a 1200w power supply and have not had a single issue for around 2 years with it but after this surge, and it was a bad outage that affected the whole city, something is just wrong. I cant describe it but I will wake up and it restarted with no updates, I am working and it just shuts down, and when I am awake to observe it is during high power related tasks, but again, my high power related tasks are all graphics related.

I have tried to check error logs but the most I am getting from it from the methods that I personally know how to check is just saying it shut down improperly (no s* sherlock)... I am also seeing Event ID 41 which has a few known causes but I am not sure the best way to trouble shoot it. Is there another way I can get crash data that might tell me where the bottle neck is so I can better deduce if a graphics card was damaged from the surge, or if it might be my power supply. I am praying it is my powersupply since my work is graphics related and graphics cards are few and far between right now.

Thank you so much and I hope to diagnose this ASAP so I can get a claim in to my insurance for it.

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I should add, I do not seem to be having a BSOD, so that aids in my belief that it may be PSU related, however, I did have in the past when one of my cards went bad that it went into a restart loop with no BSOD so I am hoping there is a crash log somewhere that can help me figure out what specifically failed right before the crash

Gurn Blanston · 06 May 2021

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be my CPU voltage setting became low for some reason. Could the power surge have affected your BIOS?

It's more likely the PSU, though. Do you happen to be able to borrow one you could use for a test, temporarily? I know that's pretty lame advice, but logically it's the best way to rule out the PSU.

Thornton · 06 May 2021

Gurn Blanston said:

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be my CPU voltage setting became low for some reason. Could the power surge have affected your BIOS?
It's more likely the PSU, though. Do you happen to be able to borrow one you could use for a test, temporarily? I know that's pretty lame advice, but logically it's the best way to rule out the PSU.

Hey thanks for the idea. I will hop into the bios and take a look soon. As far as borrowing a PSU... I have spares but none at the wattage needed to check my whole system which (hear me out...) I know you want to test one piece of hardware at a time, but the problem happens most frequently when both graphics cards and my CPU are all at 100% usage. I dont know that testing each piece individually will properly simulate that situation in testing another PSU so I would need one that is at minimum 1000w and I dont have any of those lying around right now and really dont know anyone who does.

Ideally I am just trying to figure out what is happening right before the crash. I vaguely recall once being able to look at logs of what the computer was doing right before crashes and I was able to see problems like if the graphics card was having an error or, theoretically, if there is a loss of power, or possibly more useful to me, if I could see if the total power draw suddenly spiked right before the crash.

In my experience with PSUs going bad in the past, and maybe its useless info these days because I havent had a PSU go bad in years, but usually they arent just fine and then not when they are going bad. Usually doing something that maybe causes a piece of hardware to begin pulling more power causes it to crash. I am really hoping that is and isnt the issue because my PSU is like $700 and I dont love the idea of replacing it, even with insurance, because, well, deductables, but at the same time, I really hope its not a graphics card because they may give me the $800 for my card but I will still be $2200 short with the price gouging going on these days

joeandmarg0 · 06 May 2021

Are there any entries in Device Manager which relate to the problem?
Check Reliability History for reports and any useful information in the ---view tech details---.
In the ---command prompt,run ---powercfg /help ---and go through the different options to see which,if any, may be of assistance.
Perhaps --- /requests--- /systempowerreport---and --- /powerthrottling--- could be of use.
Your having had a power surge does not bode well for the health of components. A trial and error method might be the better way to proceed.
Go back to bare bones,use one card,one monitor and an older psu and see if that works.If so,then gradually,one component at a time,return the system to its original state.
Thanks to Wuflu being set upon us,ridiculous prices will be here for sometime.

Thornton · 06 May 2021

joeandmarg0 said:

Are there any entries in Device Manager which relate to the problem?
Check Reliability History for reports and any useful information in the ---view tech details---.
In the ---command prompt,run ---powercfg /help ---and go through the different options to see which,if any, may be of assistance.
Perhaps --- /requests--- /systempowerreport---and --- /powerthrottling--- could be of use.
Your having had a power surge does not bode well for the health of components. A trial and error method might be the better way to proceed.
Go back to bare bones,use one card,one monitor and an older psu and see if that works.If so,then gradually,one component at a time,return the system to its original state.
Thanks to Wuflu being set upon us,ridiculous prices will be here for sometime.

Yeah I am really praying its not a card crapping out and if it is, I think I know which one because my cards are a model year apart so to speak and the older of the 2's twin already shat the bed... not promising. But honestly my PSU costs just as much as what insurance would give me for that card sooooooo... fun. Useless in this time of hardware drought. I changed all my power settings and while I havent done anything too graphics intense YET, I also havent had any weird shutdowns... yet.... I will yank the older card and see if that does anything but I am not confident its not the PSU still. I had a surge protector and a power conditioner and neither tripped. A few transformers blew just up the street and everything in the house shut down and not one surge protector in this whole place tripped.

I will run through the other tests you suggested that I havn't already covered and post back if anything interesting comes up