Computer is still restarting

[Laraid]

I'm not sure why someone decided to move my previous thread to the "resolved issues" section when I had yet to update if the suggestion works, so I am making a new thread... again.

Previous thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...still-restarts

Anyway, to the person that suggested a new thermal paste, that didn't work. I am still getting restarts while playing games. Please... I don't know what else to do. I'm buying stuff blindly and I my funding is low. Details on my problem are in the previous thread. Thanks for anyone that helps.

[Kitkat]

I'm going to tell you this as I ran into similar issues with power supply units: It may say it has a max load of 550 or 600, but only a load output of 400-500. This could be the issue you run into, but it sounds closer to the fact your PSU might in fact be failing on you when it requires additional power under increased power consumption meaning it is no longer putting out the recommended power to supply your system.

I tried to skimp on this with a secondary pc I built for a family member thinking a 600W would do the trick since the package stated it required at most a 450W to work with the card. Low and behold, when I put it under load....the system shut down cause there wasn't enough power to run the components. Even something as simple as a youtube video puts your card under a "load" even if it isn't utilizing the full extent of the card (GPU clock increases even though all steam processors aren't being utilized). Even if you have someone who could loan you a PSU to try before spending more money yourself to test this I would suggest doing so cause it seriously sounds like a lack of power, not a thermal issue.....then again you haven't posted any information on your temperatures when the machine shuts down as requested either.

Also to quote someone who gave a similar answer (most likely reason it went to resolved):

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).

[Laraid]

I managed to convince a friend to lend me his 800W PSU and the problem still persisted. His PSU may not be new but he has been using it with no problems and his build is actually very similar to mine.

About the temperatures of the PC components before the restart... well I don't know of a good program. I downloaded CPUID HWMonitor but there are no logs after the PC restarts so I don't know what the temp was.

[Kitkat]

It is more along the lines that you need to keep an eye on them while you are at the computer (have the program up and visible if possible). Additionally you can place the computer under load without needing to actually play a game via stress test programs such as Prime 95 (for CPU stress testing) and Furmark (for GPU/CPU/RAM stress testing). A couple other things you can do via Windows itself is run a RAM diagnostic to see if there is any errors that occur and possibly even run a check disk on the hard drive via system tools. If you are seeing actual errors in your Event log, try to get the event ID as well to help narrow the problem down as this could be caused by a bad registry setting, corrupt driver, or conflicting drivers as well.

There can be various reasons why you have a random shutdown, program crash, or blue screen errors (though you have not mentioned having any of these), but in order to help you beyond what others have suggested already it requires you take some additional steps to try an narrow the cause.

[Cure]

First thing to check is make sure your fans are free of dust and also your output vents. Let us know what your max temperature is and what CPU you have. Like Kitkat said there are lots of causes that will restart your PC but most common is overheating.