I play a lot of games, but they keep stopping and going again.
I play a lot of games, but they keep stopping and going again.
I have had a lot of trouble running my computer lately because it is actually really fast and powerful. My PC has a Ryzen 5 5600X, an ASUS Strix B550-A Gaming motherboard with 16 GB RAM at 3600 MHz, and I use an RTX 3070 Oloy Warhawk paired with 850W power from the MSI Suprim X. When I just turn it on or when nothing is playing, everything works fine. But if I start a game, it only runs okay for a few minutes before crashing. How long it takes to crash depends on the game; Red Dead Redemption might take a few minutes, while Battlefield V could take an hour, and Elden Ring often falls into those two categories.
I have tried updating every driver, using DDU to clean things up, reinstalling Windows, cleaning my PC again, updating the BIOS, installing .NET and DirectX. I am wondering if it is just my graphics card that's causing this issue or if I should return it for a replacement (RMA). Another possibility is the power supply unit, but I'm not sure which one to pick.
There was an old problem with blue screen errors before, but now it isn't happening as much recently. I am using my last resort of asking random strangers on the internet how to fix this issue that has been bothering me for months.
Are you checking temperatures? Have you run MemTest? Did you check if the memory is in the QVL for your motherboard (I doubt this with Oloy)? Did you turn off XMP? Look at Event Viewer and check Reliability History for error codes. I think it's easier to open a browser on another PC or screen, type the ID, and compare results. I looked up that PSU and it doesn't seem to have a great reputation as a reliable unit. I would get more opinion before making knee-jerk replacements instead of just guessing there was a problem with it earlier.
I ran my memtest86 and it showed no problems, but then I kept getting a weird blue screen error saying KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED when booting up. Every time I try to figure out what's wrong, things get worse and I start thinking the power supply unit might be the issue.
Have you taken things apart and put them back together? You might think it's impossible, but often just reassembling it fixes random connection problems. Try moving the memory and the GPU around to see if that helps too. Unplug all cables, even the fans and USB devices. If something is dragging down power below what your computer needs, it could be causing issues. Since you already did a complete reset of everything, maybe not just software. So yes, check the power supply unit now. Watch how well its voltage holds up when things are running hard. It should drop slightly, but never go too low compared to normal standards.
It doesn't mean there are no other ways to fix problems, but if you see a lot of Event 41 in the Event Viewer, that might point to a power supply unit (PSU) being bad. These events really suggest an unexpected shutdown, even though fixing them is usually easy and common.
Test on lower RAM speeds like 2666 or 2933 instead of trying 3600 MHz. It's not always safe to go that high because some CPUs and boards aren't stable at those higher frequencies, even though overclocking can be great if it works well. Before you change the power supply and its cables, check for easy fixes first.