power surge

[alecus]

OK so first things first, assume i'm an idiot when is comes to technical issues this will go a lot smoother in that case

right my build is about 4-5 years old at this point, specs below, i did add a 1tb hdd about a year ago

Case
CORSAIR SPEC-03 COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Storage Drive
500GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
LED Lighting
50cm Red LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

basically its a low to mid (at the time) gaming rig, i don't really play anything that's going to stress the system & up until now i have had zero issues

last night however the pc just switched off & rebooted to
"Asus anti-surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply"
it only happened once, i re-logged in & went about my day' everything was fine until today, the same thing happens again & again but only when i have a game running, 5 times it re-set itself in less than an hour, i have tested 5-6 games, they all cause a shut down, just not right away, can be 3-5mins to 15-20 mins, but they all cause the "anti-surge"

a hour or two on google & i have seen everything from "update BIOS" "switch off surge protect" "clean dust out" to replace psu

as far as i can see BOIS is up to date, the system is pretty clean, & switching off the anti-surge just seems dumb,

my first instinct is just to buy a new more powerful psu

the 350V i have is on the low end but more than enough for my needs according to the order when i placed it,

my real question, is my 4 yr old psu dying because of heavy use/uptime, i mean its powered on 12+ hours every day

again refer to first statement, i have no idea if a new psu would fix this or if its a software thing WAY over my head

advice, input and or past experiences would be much appreciated



update, i have been playing around with OCCT, stress testing things, CPU test will just run & run at 100% load, PSU test causes an almost instant crash & the GPU test will crash after a few mins, i assume/hope its because the power required to run the GPU

the odd thing is the crash sometimes wont shutdown the PC, only the monitor, usually while testing the GPU, screen goes black & tells me there is no HDMI input, at this point i try turning monitor off & on again but its still blacked out

is my GPU just drawing too much power for the PSU & causing the surge? i mean its only a 350W, & my invoice says

Maximum Required Power

332W

all this started the day i upgraded nvidia drivers, might be a dumb conclusion but its all i can think of

again i have no real clue what i'm doing just grasping at straws here trying to logic it out

 

[ubuysa]

I'm no expert on this but I understand from previous posts that this is not uncommon and isn't necessarily a problem.

 

[Rakk]

I'm no expert on this but I understand from previous posts that this is not uncommon and isn't necessarily a problem.

Whilst the Anti-surge message on Asus boards can just be a fake message, if its causing shut-downs, something is wrong

 

[Oussebon]

Yes, the Asus anti surge thing is notorious for false positives.

The fact it's happening a lot and post driver update makes me concerned it might not be a false positive here.

Perhaps - wild speculation here - the driver update makes the GPU draw just a little more power, which is enough to trigger the safeguard when before it didn't.

GPUs draw power direct from the PSU, but they also draw via the motherboard's PCIe slot.

To address a few of the things you said:

my first instinct is just to buy a new more powerful psu

the 350V i have is on the low end but more than enough for my needs according to the order when i placed it,

While 350W is enough, there are plenty of reasons to get a larger PSU - opening up GPU upgrade options, larger PSUs not costing a whole lot more, PSUs being often most efficient when loaded somewhere in the middle of their capacity.

I'm not au fait with the current PSUs. Last time I shopped was 2016 and I got a Corsair CX 550W Modular. Having a quick look, the Corsair TX550M (gold rated, modular) is barely any more than the modular CX. So if it comes to getting a new PSU, the TXm could be worth a look.

my real question, is my 4 yr old psu dying because of heavy use/uptime, i mean its powered on 12+ hours every day

If you do have a hardware failure, it's not necessarily because you used it 'too much'. Electronics die, and you could take 2 units of the same model, run them the same, and have one last a lot longer than the other.

The first thing I'd do would be to remove the GPU drivers with DDU, and reinstall the old version you had before, and see what happens:

Clean Installing Graphics Drivers

Hi All, A clean installation of your Graphics drivers tends to be the "go to" fix for a lot of graphics issues due to the fact that it is so simple to do and can resolve numerous software causes quickly. I would suggest using a tool called DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller), this is a straight...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

You can download specific versions of GPU drivers from the Nvidia / Geforce websites.

 

[alecus]

ok so i roll'd back nvidia drivers, ran some stress tests all seemed ok for about 30mins, then during gameplay the surge happened again,

next step would be disable surge protect, this has me worried, while uk rarely has power surges, if the surge is coming from inside my PC thats just going to nuke my mobo or CPU right?

its that or buy/install new PSU

 

[Oussebon]

When you says you rolled back the Nvidia drivers.. did you use the DDU method and perform a clean install, or did you just roll back the drivers

You don't want to turn off the Asus surge protection just yet. It's not about UK power surges; if you have a faulty PSU, you'd be disabling the thing that prevents it harming other components.

 

[alecus]

yup, followed all steps word for word no problems, roll'd back to the driver i was using before i had any issues, still getting the surges while gaming or stress testing with OCCT, interestingly customer support told me to run https://benchmark.unigine.com/superposition?lang=en and i have run it like 5 times on various settings, hasn't caused a crash yet, but the OCCT GPU test does crash, again i assume because of power consumption

 

[Markasaurus]

Hi there, I have the exact same problem with my build this week!
I bought my PC in 2014 so a similar age to yours.

On Saturday last week I got a power surge warning and auto reboot, and again on Sunday. Every time I loaded a game it would crash within 20-30minutes, some times instantly. Once or twice the sound continued from the game but the screen froze until I forced a reboot.

Today my graphics card isn't working at all - it's just not detected. I changed slots and checked all the wiring but have had to resort to onboard gfx until I can fix it.

I can't reinstall drivers as the hardware is not detected.

Absolutely gutted!

Overclocked CPU	Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-4690k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ upto 4.60GHz)
OC Settings	Show/Hide
Motherboard	ASUS® MAXIMUS VII RANGER: PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM)	16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card	NONE
3rd Graphics Card	NONE
1st Storage Drive	120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)

I should add until this week I've had no problems at all with the PC or the gfx card.

 

[RichH]

Wasnt there/isnt there an issue with PSUs degenerating over time.

If you started with a 350w 4 years ago, it may not still be capable of producing that amount especially if your max required was 332w originally.

 

[Markasaurus]

Wasnt there/isnt there an issue with PSUs degenerating over time.

If you started with a 350w 4 years ago, it may not still be capable of producing that amount especially if your max required was 332w originally.

Thanks that's a great point. How do i find out how much PSU i need?

 

[alecus]

well i bought a new PSU & so far i been gaming/stress testing for an hour or 2 with no surge/crash, im like 90% sure my issue is fixed, wont know for sure until/if my PC shits itself again TY for all the help/info, much appreciated,

as for markasaurus, look at your order, go down to pricing info, should be a Maximum Required Power section,

as far as i can tell, running my PSU at 90% capacity for 4-5 years just savaged it, so i just upgraded to a 550V, way overkill for my needs i know, but now i can upgrade in future & for now my PSU will idle in the mid range & research indicated that's way better for the health/lifespan of the PSU

 

[Oussebon]

What did you get out of interest?

Also, a little light recommended viewing on PSUs

 

[alecus]

550V corsair VS series, just a basic do the job PSU, a straight upgrade from the 350v VS i had, first time i have had to install one, can now officially say "screw cable management" was a total pain in my small ass case

 

[Oussebon]

That's one of the advantages of more expensive PSUs like the TXm. Modular cables. So you only connect the cables you need.

 

[alecus]

Crap crap crap, just crashed again but now my monitor wont display anything, "no hdmi signal detected" tried re-starting just wont display anything..... ran fine for 2 days, was playing games for hours at a time, no stress test triggered anything, now the tower will turn on, but cant pick up a display

update took my GPU out & plugged screen into motherboard HDMI, i can get into PC now, & now for the serious question, did my GPU just die?

 

[Oussebon]

Before you rush out and buy another, bear in mind that in terms of duff hardware it could also be the motherboard.

I'd tell you to try another PCIe slot but

You could try reseating the GPU, ensuring it clicks back into the PCIe slot properly, and that the GPU power connectors are firmly connected.

Could be worth unplugging every PSU power cable and reconnecting them too. It's surprisingly easy to not quite plug something in right.

I'd probably try a clean Windows install / seeing if I could get a Linux install going and run any games on that.

 

[alecus]

yea that's my worry spending money on a GPU only to have the same issue because its the CPU or MOBO, i have re-installed the GPU, unplugged & re-plugged everything (was the first thing i did, making sure i didn't mess up the installation)

when my HDMI is plugged into GPU im getting no signal at all, cant even get to log in screen to test things, likewise when the GPU is installed & i have my HDMI running to my MOBO i get no signal, but when i take GPU out & run monitor through MOBO all is normal,

one odd thing is the GPU fan is still working, i figured if the GPU was dead it would stop

right now i can either send it back to PCspecialist & thats gona cost 35pounds just to ship there & back, + them figuring out the GPU is broke & replacing like for like will prob cost 100+ 960s are still expensive & kinda outdated so hard to find, not even sure they are still in stock at PCspecialist and i would have to opt for an upgrade anyway, OR i just buy a 1650 for 150 pounds & install it myself & HOPE its not CPU/MOBO related

 

[Oussebon]

You could always call PCS for troubleshooting. Point them at this thread too. Perhaps they can help you rule things in/out even without sending back.

 

[alecus]

done that, & they know about the thread, they only asked for the system back after i gave them my event log, so they need it in house for hardware troubleshoot, sending it back would cost £35, service would cost £25 & take 2weeks+, they even told me just to take it to a local repair shop for a basic check up because of the backlog atm & that's prob all they would do at pcspecialist anyway

on top of that part replacement is an unknown cost, but seeing as in the upgrade my system section the only GPUs available are a gtx 720 & 730, i would assume they have no 960s in stock so that's an even longer wait time while they order the part

at this point the cost would be about the same as just ordering a GPU upgrade from amazon & i wouldn't have to wait 3-4 weeks

i would kill 2 birds if i could, but it looks like i cant send it back for them to diagnose issue & upgrade GPU (if that' whats broke) at the same time, so as far as i can see it would be 2 seperate orders/RMAs incurring the £60 cost & 2 weeks each time' one to fix/replace costing about £150, then another "special order" (the upgrade my order section on website only has downgrades lol) to upgrade costing about £200