I’ve been having a strange problem with my PC for quite some time now, and I’m finally getting sick enough of it to do something.

With shocking regularity, my computer will completely loss power once a day, typically in the afternoon/night after many hours of use. Sometimes this “random” loss of power will occur during a time of load (IE playing a game), and other times it occurs while completely idle, sometimes while I’m not even in the same room as the computer.

I haven’t done much troubleshooting because honestly I don’t know where to start for this, because I have no idea what this problem might be. I initially though my PSU might be faulty, but the incredible regularity of the problem leads me to believe that the PSU is unlikely to be the culprit.

The problem briefly went away for a few months, but has returned again within the last month, which also leads me to believe the PSU is not the culprit, because why the hell would it randomly stop giving me issues for a few months before going back to it’s usual routine of dying precisely once a day (Seriously, it has NEVER done it twice in one day, not a single time.)

I’m seriously at a loss here, so all recommendations are helpful.

I’m running an intel i7-9700k, NOT overclocked

A brand new RTX 4070 (This was purchased after the problem started, so I am 100% certain it is not the problem)

I have 4 sticks of ram, totaling 80 GB, 2 sticks of 8 GB and 2 sticks of 32 GB, each of which are pairs.

I have straight up no idea what my PSU is (Which I know is terrible given my current problem), but it’s sufficient to run my computer, given that it, you know, runs.

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I’m in the process of testing with MemTest86 now, I’ll edit this post once I have the results.

  • ChilledMayonnaise@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    So, the machine just straight up powers off, no blue screen of death, no other output?

    If so and it’s not the power supply, then it likely is some type of hardware problem that’s causing the machine to power off.

    Typically only extreme thermal overloads that can’t be solved by throttling causes sudden power offs. You mention it happened even while idle. While yes, a computer can overheat with a poor heatsink interface while idle, I’d suspect that the thermal throttling should be able to reign in the CPU’s temps without having to resort to pulling the “EPO” feature. :)

    Have you checked to see if the power button might be depressed/stuck or the like? Same with the reset header, though if your computer properly powers off, then it isn’t the reset button.

    If your comfortable (seems like it?) with opening up your computer, you can try disconnecting the power button lead from the motherboard.

    You can use a screwdriver or something similar that’s metal and conducts electricity to short the two pins of the power button on the motherboard to power on your machine, if your motherboard doesn’t have it’s own power button. (My ASUS motherboard has an on-board power button - why I mention it.) Run it with the case’s power button disconnected and see if the problem goes away.

    Good Luck!