Computer Restarts

[Laraid]

For the past 2-3 months I've been having problems with my computer when playing games. Whenever I am playing, after a while (4-5 hours at most) my computer restarts itself. There are no warnings, nor there are Blue-Screens with a dump log of the crash. The computer just restarts. Usually after that I try to continue playing but I notice that the time it takes the restart to happen again is shorter. My drivers are up to date and my computer is free of viruses as well. I am assuming this is more of a hardware problem but I do not know a way to identify what is causing this. I would be eternally greatful to anyone that could help me. My specs:

Graphics- XFX CORE Edition FX-777A-ZNF4 Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB
Processor- AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W 6-Core
Motherboard- GIGABYTE 970A-Ds3 AM3+
Powersupply- Logisys PSU -600w
RAM- DDR3 8GB ST 1333

Please help me ='(

[Raist]

Sounds like either an overheating condition, or insufficient power supply.

If anything is overclocked, try notching it back so the system <hopefully> consumes less power.

Make sure all your fans are working. One common culprit is the graphics card--the stock BIOS settings often don't adjust the fan speed aggressively enough. You can go into the CCC and enable clock adjustment to get at a fan speed option. Often times the fans are kept on the low side in the BIOS to reduce noise and power consumption. I've found I can usually move them up to 40-44% speeds before they start to get noisy, and this (usually) does the trick to keep them cool for the most part. A few models I've had to push to 46% or higher to keep them in check.

I would be a little concerned about that power supply... especially if it doesn't have anything to show it is 80+ or SLI/XFire certified. You may be dealing with a more generic design that suffers from output when it warms up (or as it gets older). A generic config for your system could call for about 400W for good measure (assuming stock clocks). A certified 600W model should be guaranteed to throw out 480W or more under extreme conditions, where a generic may only put out 360W (or less). So, you may not have enough head room once things heat up in the case and the PSU itself gets hot on the inside. A 650W or higher PSU may be in order.

[Laraid]

I am currently trying to adjust the fan speeds. A friend just told me I should get a better PSU since the one I am currently using doesn't even have a brand lable on it, so it's probably bad. I was not the person that originally put the PC together so I had to do a bit of work figuring out the brand of the PSU. If increasing fans speeds doesn't help I will try to get a better PSU. Aside from that, is there anything else that could be causing this problem? It would be a shame that even with a new PSU the problem still persisted because it was being caused by something else and currently I am tight on funds for my PC. =(

Thanks for helping. =)

[Fumijj_Gah]

Sounds like either an overheating condition, or insufficient power supply

Exactly.
Please Laraid, download Real Temp to check your FX cpu cores temp.
600W can be enough for 7770 only if you didn't overclock your cpu.

[Laraul]

The AMD 7770 specs page lists that only a 500W power supply is needed for one GPU, and a 600W is only needed for two. Since the card requires a single six pin 75W connector, I would estimate the max TDP to be no more than 150W for the card. So I don't think it's related to the power supply.

[KraggyKor]

You say "at most" you can run for 4-5 hours, but how quickly after starting the game are you seeing problems?

Thing is, if it's a PSU problem then I'd expect it to hit pretty soon after and not take 4-5 hours before tripping, assuming you're playing the game pretty steadily over that period of time. Heating OTOH is more nebulous in my experience and ambient temperature and other factors can affect its' onset.

I agree with you that your 600W PSU would seem to be perfectly fine, assuming correct operation, and I agree with the others that getting temp. readings to see how near CPU and GPU thresholds you're at could indicate the problem and prevent you buying an unnecessary PSU.

As for your non-name PSU, you could try running voltage monitoring software if you got something with your motherboard's package. While BIOSes often have a voltage readout in my experience that's pretty useless for this sort of potential problem as by definition you're not driving a gfx card hard when staring at a BIOS TUI.

[Shirai]

No blue screens, no stack dump just a reboot.
To be absolutely sure that it none of that is actually happening, have you checked your Windows error logs?
Sometimes it happens so fast that you cannot see it happen.

If there's no errors in your logs I am going to have to side with the people saying that you may have a PSU problem.
I don't think there's a heat problem because most modern mainboards will shut the computer down completely if that is the case.

[xeonotrix]

Ok listen up. I had some issues were my computer would get a black screen and either reboot or hang. Sometimes the drivers would recover and sometimes they would not. Now you may have a different issue compared to me but i'm anyways sharing my 2 cents. I did all sorts of testing , ran Furmark for GPU stability, ran memtest for Ram , Prime for CPU and I was checking my temperatures while doing so. I was at a loss. My other games had no issues. But when I ran TSW(The secret world) Under dx9 i would get the black screen and then the drivers would recover. Then I ran TSW in DX11 and no black screen but the game was not running fine at all. I also thought that it was hardware related. So I did a complete re-installation of Windows 8. After the last 2 test runs under TSW I thought it was either corrupted files under DX or the drivers. So i did a command prompt under windows to check the integrity of the Operating System. And corrupted files where found. Once i did a re-installation the system has been stable with no crashes any longer. In other words yes you may have hardware issues or maybe not. Because corrupted files can cause instability. Software controls the hardware therefore making different tests can help you figure this out. If you suspect is your power supply or GPU see if you have a spare and test the system agan.


Best Regards
Xeonotrix

[Raist]

Reference designs for those 7770 rate the cards themselves at up to 150 or 170 watts, depending on configuration. They require 75W supply just from the 6-pin PCI-E plug from the power supply--that is in addition to what gets drawn off the motherboard. AMD actually recommends at least a 500W PSU for a single card, 600W for crossfire--and those are certified PSU's, not a generic one like it appears the OP has at the moment.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...on-7770.aspx#3

500W (or greater) power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended7
600W power supply (or greater) with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended for AMD CrossFire™ technology.

NOTE: Minimum recommended system power supply wattage is based on the specific graphics card and the typical power requirements of other system components. Your system may require more or less power. OEM and other pre-assembled PCs may have different power requirements.

Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products

Note the distinction there for certified PSU's. Generic ones have been known to have a nasty slope-off in efficiency beyond a 50-60% load. At 75% they can start to heat up a lot, throwing unwanted heat into the case as well as seeing their capacity slope off very dramatically. This extra heat can further compound cooling issues if the layout is already marginal on the cooling side.

Note also the 95W CPU--so potentially, the OP could be consuming about 40% or more of that PSU's expected reliable capacity on just two devices (95W for the CPU plus 150-170 for the card). That isn't accounting for drives, fans, memory, USB or other devices drawing power off the motherboard--nor the motherboard itself.

So, even if this can be tracked down to being a cooling issue... it may still be prudent to replace that PSU with at least a 600W certified one. If anticipating overclocking or upgrading CPU or GPU in the near future to something more powerful, I'd consider a little higher if in the budget since these certified ones tend to last a long time (or at least have a decent warranty time).