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Random shutdowns, no bleepin' reasonFollow

#1 Mar 27 2014 at 7:40 PM Rating: Good
Ever since I got my sexytime GTX 770, I've experienced random shutdowns for no reason. I don't get a blue screen nor do I get a crash dump. It's like the power goes out. No warning.

I have an 850 watt PSU that is about a year old. It supported the Radeon 7770 just fine. I checked the voltage readings via UEFI and everything is a little bit high, but the main 12V rail is 64 amps on this thing so it's certainly not a power under draw. How much higher than the actual voltages can hardware support? The 12V is actually at 12.4 - the CPU is 1.02 - the 3V ones read at 3.3V or so.

The first time it happened I got a good crash dump which said it was AVG. So I uninstalled AVG and went back to Windows defender.

I've even taken apart the box and reseated everything. Just in case I didn't have something socketed properly.

Is there any way to check the health of a PSU outside of using a multimeter? (I'd electrocute myself, I am sure.)

Edited, Mar 30th 2014 12:22am by Catwho
#2 Mar 27 2014 at 10:24 PM Rating: Good
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Could it be overheating? I seem to recall my comp doing the same thing many years back and I think we traced it to a fan going out.
#3 Mar 28 2014 at 7:42 PM Rating: Good
I've been keeping an eye on the temperatures and they're fine.
#4 Mar 28 2014 at 11:17 PM Rating: Excellent
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A power supply tester with the unit under load ($15 plus something you can plug into it and run independantly, prefferably a large water cooling pump or something along those lines will tell you if you are getting any drops or spikes, but basically the same data you can already get from uefi.

What make and model power supply are we talking about. SOme of the less desirable ones (OCZ, etc.) have really really crappy capacitors that can start to fail after a year or two. Most of the solid good ones should last at least 3 on the low side though. An enermax will last you forever.

A full system halt without a memory write or a bluescreen or a cache dump or anything is almost always power, and is almost always either the power supply, the motherboard itself, or the video card. If you have a spare, prefferably low end and not requiring alternate power video card you can put in for a day or two and see if you can get it to repeat the issue, that will eliminate the video card as a suspect. Also, you said 850 watt, which should be fine assuming its a decent brand, but just to check, how many hard drives (speeds, types SSD or no) and optical drives do you have plugged into this thing? Any chance you have 6 or 7 drives and a few accessory cards plugged into it?
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#5 Mar 29 2014 at 10:11 AM Rating: Good
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
Could it be overheating? I seem to recall my comp doing the same thing many years back and I think we traced it to a fan going out.
I had this happen in college where my GPU was clogged with dust and the computer would just black out and shut down with no BSOD.
#6 Mar 29 2014 at 12:42 PM Rating: Good
So I just ran a video RAM test at the suggestion of a friend and it coughed up 34 errors on my brand new GTX 770. Gonna be RMAing this I think.

I know it's not dust because as part of the process of installing the card, I gave the entire system a good dust out. I've got Speedfan and Realtemp running and the card never goes above 70C under load. CPU is a relatively frosty 45C most of the time.
#7 Mar 29 2014 at 6:46 PM Rating: Good
Contacted MSI to initiate the RMA process.

One suggestion I got that I am going to try before shipping it back is using a different PSU wire. The 770 is power hungry and needs two 8-pin leads off the PSU - it came with an adapter from a six pin to an eight pin which I used since I didn't have two 8 pins. Someone said that the PSU wire itself could be faulty, and I think there are some extra 6 pins left in there. I am going to try swapping the six pin out with a different one.

I am definitely getting a modular PSU next time. I think I use at most 4-5 wires from the PSU, not the 20 that are dangling around in there.
#8 Mar 29 2014 at 7:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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Oh, those adaptor things are absolute crap. They kill video cards. Your existing card has almost certanly been damaged by them. I wish they wouldn't even include them in the box as an option because they generate so much extra heat on those two split off links. Buy a new power supply before you put the RMA card back in.

+1 modular PSU. Those things are the best invention ever!
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#9 Mar 29 2014 at 8:03 PM Rating: Good
Boo! That makes sense.

Going to root around in there and see if there was an extra 8-pin I missed. If not, then I guess it is time for a new PSU.

Funny enough, have been running XI nonstop for hours with nary a blip.

Edit: After spending some quality time with The Medusa (tm) I've discovered that both of the 12v PCIe tentacles are actually 6 pins with an 8 pin adapter And that the 64 amps on the 12V rail are spread across the four 6-pin connectors, so it's really only capable of putting out 32 amps.

Also, the video card is so damn heavy it's already sagging slightly. Smiley: eek

Edited, Mar 30th 2014 12:23am by Catwho
#10 Mar 30 2014 at 8:40 AM Rating: Good
UPDATE: Well, I switched the wires as a last ditch effort and XIV ran overnight without a crash., The system also stopped making random "bzzzt!" sounds with static on the monitors as well.

I'll be damned. It really may have been a bad PCIe 12V tentacle.

UPDATEGA: Hahaha nope. Flipped out on me in the middle of Crystal Tower, and then to add insult to injury I got kicked out by the system since it happened to me the second I returned to start.

Going to get a new PSU after all. And if it's still flipping out, I have a strong case for RMA to MSI.

Edited, Mar 30th 2014 11:33am by Catwho
#11 Mar 30 2014 at 9:44 AM Rating: Good
Looking at this one.

I broke out my motherboard's user manual to make sure everything matches up, and it does. It has x3 8 pin connectors and another 6+2 pins so I think I could eventually drop in another GTX 770 with this sucker and it'd be okay. I'd rather pay the money now and future proof the system.
#12 Mar 30 2014 at 10:52 AM Rating: Good
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Catwho wrote:
Looking at this one.

I broke out my motherboard's user manual to make sure everything matches up, and it does. It has x3 8 pin connectors and another 6+2 pins so I think I could eventually drop in another GTX 770 with this sucker and it'd be okay. I'd rather pay the money now and future proof the system.

Coolermaster makes a good PSU. Like Kao said Enermax is probably the best, but it was more than I wanted to spend so he suggested Coolmax and it's been a pretty good PSU. I was always a Thermaltake guy, but I've just gone through too many of them to continue purchasing them.
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#13 Mar 30 2014 at 11:40 AM Rating: Excellent
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I second Cooler master being a solid PSU manufacturer.
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#14 Mar 30 2014 at 11:56 AM Rating: Good
Ordered and on the way! I'm impatient, I told them to get it here by Tuesday. Monday is XI day so overnight it would be silly.

If this goes splort even after the new PSU, then I can legitimately say to MIS that "yes, I tried a different PSU" and "yes, I tried a different video card in the motherboard and it worked fine" (since the motherboard was working great with the Radeon 7770.)
#15 Apr 02 2014 at 10:25 PM Rating: Good
Played XIV all night with this new PSU and not a single crash occurred.

Gonna test it for a full week before I declare mission accomplished, though.

Edit: Played about 8 hours straight yesterday when I came home early from the dentist. (My front teef are fixed woot. No more chips!) Still no crashes.


Edited, Apr 4th 2014 9:02am by Catwho
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