Computer has started to shut off 5 mins into wow

Hey, perhaps this is in the wrong section, I apologies if it is.

This issue started to happen literally a few days ago. My system should be fine for playing wow and has been for a year now. I was using vista 32, gtx 260, CWT 750 watt psu, asus p5n-d motherboard, 4 gigs of ram, Q9550 CPU quad core.

I tried restoring to factory settings after doing the routine driver wipes (driver sweeper) and even installed Windows 7 64.

The issue seems to occur in some games only, and only in the past week. I was running Skyrim and Star Trek Online which are now effected (before I tried drivers and restore and win7). But other games like Anno 2070 are unaffected.

I've monitored my temperatures and fan speeds using Core Temp, Nvidia inspector, msi afterburner etc and my temps for cpu are around 38c and gpu 50c at idle and when running Furmark and prime 95 or Intel Burn test at the same time for 15 minutes the temps still stay in decent ranges (CPU to 75 GPU to 75). I have also run memtest and windows memory diag to check ram. I ran chkdsk on my HDD too. All came up fine.

I have also updated BIOS and checked for autoshutdown things (but there seem to be none).

I've checked for dust and feel it could be a psu issue. But why it only occurs every 5 mins into wow (clean install no addons) and the same with Skyrim and STO around the 5 minute mark as well - remains a mystery to me.

The system hasn't recently moved so I don't think anything is unseated - but have checked, and have even taken out the graphics card and memory just in case.

The ventilation seems fine if the temperatures are to be believed. I am really leaning on a PSU issue, but most of the research I have done is around people with the wrong wattage in new systems. Mine has had this 750 since the start (haven't changed anything) - and if its a sign the PSU is on it's way out, then I'm puzzled that its not shutting down like in wow when I perform the stress tests (full load CPU, GPU, high temps etc)...

The shut down is immediate, no beeps, and no mention of it in event viewer or startup other than "windows seems to have not blah blah"

Thanks for any insight.

 

Firstly welcome to the Forums and excellent detail in post.
Your 75C is a little high but I can't see it effecting anything seriously, but you may want to think about some extra cooling fans to bring those down a bit to avoid future issues.

I'm assuming by "computer shuts off" that it simply powers down?
In which case I would be leaning towards agreeing it is pointing to the PSU. While your tests are giving inconsistent results, it is possible that the PSU will run ok most of the time but "Glitch" out now and again.
I wouldn't want to say rush out and buy a new PSU but instead if possible borrow one?
WOW takes a fair amount of power to run for what it is, obviously Skyrim is a pretty heavy load. Don't know about Star Trek but Anno is a little lower, given how nice it looks it's req: specs are fairly low.

Have you tried running these games on lowest settings to alleviate stress?

Another thought is a glitching game client, obviously WOW is on it's own but are the others all run through Steam or is there differences there?

Another thought could be the newest drivers migt not necessarily be stable for you, I rarely use the latest drivers (admittedly ATI) because they always cause me issues, currently running drivers from April last year.

Also have you tried running those games (at least the ones you can) with your internet disconnected? It's a long shot but you may be having some weird activity or update which is conflicting.

Thats a tough one and I realise my reply is pretty vague but it's just a couple of things to think about and hopefully test.

On a side note, I've been looking at Anno 2070 and I think I want it, is it any good?

 

If it's not the PSU, update your DirectX installs, both 9 and ten. Update your video driver and your .NET frameworks if they are out of date. Your problem is inconsistent (some games but not all) and depressingly often, inconsistent issues are software based.

I used to run the P5N-D motherboard, and it was great, but took 12+ BIOS updates to get there. I know you said you updated, so you should be good, but make very sure you're on the latest non-beta! Also, consider updating the nVidia chipset driver for the motherboard, just to cover all bases.

And after saying all of the above, I thought I'd mention that I had a similar issues with Fallout: New Vegas when it was new, and no other game, and they stopped when I replaced my PSU. So that could very well be it.

Last of all, welcome to MGs, and as Ned said, thank you for including so much detail!

 

Thanks for the replies.

Temps are not normally at 75c when gaming, that was while running both stressing programs to push the gpu and cpu and I'm sure a temp issue would have sprung up much sooner than this (especially considering the rig has been playing wow for so long now).

I managed to run out and get new compound/paste for the cpu/heatsink but it didn't make much of a difference (not applying lots or anything, just enough really).

I am very suspicious about it possibly concerning the internet. I don't have many games that don't have an internet element, and even fewer that don't operate through Steam (which I know can raise issues). But will try those.

I checked the voltages reported using Speedfan and CPUID HWMonitor and got

-12V: -16.72V
-5V: -5.66V
+5V: 5.05V
Vbat: 3.23V
Vcore: 1.28V

+12V: 11.97V
+3.3V: 3.30V

That -16V is odd, but I'm not knowledgeable about PSU and HWMonitor reported the same values for the positive voltages (it didn't have any negative Volt columns). I'm hoping to get a hold of an LCD PSU tester tomorrow.

The shut off is as if someone pulled out the plug. Instant. On restart, its like nothing serious ever happened, temps are fine (they were fine before it shut down) too.

*I'd highly recommend Anno 2070. The campaign is not as long as one might like, but range of tech trees for each faction is great and the game has an amazing artstyle as well as systems.

I haven't installed any antivirus since I formatted my HDD and reinstalled a new OS and the issue has persisted. I started to test the game literally after putting in the various drivers.

I'll do a check on direct x and .NET installs again.

Thanks.

 

The system was showing direct x 11 installed in dxdiag, but I was able to install the latest directx 9c. It still shows as d11.

I re installed graphics drivers and chipset as well as .NET. Unfortunately that didn't change anything. I'll try and get a PSU tester tomorrow/today.

This mystery is annoying =)

 

It's this behaviour that has me leaning to PSU, usually an onboard hardware error would BSOD and a software crash would either freeze up or report a "Windows is recovering from a serious fault" type message. I realise neither are always the case but sudden power downs in my experience have 99% of the time been due to PSU.

As for Anno 2070, I bought it, played it all day lol, it's quite a unique game huh, enjoying it