Problem: PC keeps stopping and not starting when playing certain games.
Problem: PC keeps stopping and not starting when playing certain games.
Hey, so my PC started crashing randomly when opening games or during gameplay. It happens sometimes but not always. For example, Baldurs Gate 3 works fine in the menu, but crashes right before saving a level to 100%. Call of Duty: MW 2019 has no issues. Sniper Elite 4 also runs smoothly. Commandos Origins is okay too. However, when it starts loading after my character dies in COD:MW 2019, the PC crashes.
I tested all four games on three different hard drives (an M.2 NVMe SSD, a 480GB SATA SSD, and a 2TB HDD). The behavior is exactly the same no matter which drive I use. My guess right now is that the power supply unit is broken. Here is how I tried to figure it out:
1. I ran Furmark for stress testing for about 30 minutes. Nothing happened. GPU temps got hot but stayed steady. No heat throttling was seen.
2. I ran a CPU test from inside Furmark. There were no crashes or weird signs up there.
3. I ran Memtest and it passed all four checks with zero errors.
4. I ran both the CPU and GPU stress tests in Furmark at the same time for five minutes. No crash during those 5 mins, but the moment I opened Task Manager, the PC crashed. I tried this again later, but no crash happened then either.
5. I checked Crystal Disk Mark. There were no crashes there either.
6. I looked at Crystal Disk Info. There were no errors or warnings. The health was "good".
7. I moved the game files to other drives (like the NVMe and HDDs). Nothing changed about how they behave.
8. I unplugged everything except the monitor and keyboard. It still crashed.
9. I turned off XMP in the BIOS, but nothing changed either.
10. For this last test, I used a spare 450W power supply from my old build. I split the power between two different units. The ATX connectors and SATA drive connectors came from the spare unit. The GPU and other connections still stayed on the original PSU. In that setup, there were no crashes.
I wanted to swap the GPU or the main power connector with the original, but the old PSU doesn't have slots for the GPU anymore. So is this a broken power supply? Or am I missing something else? Is there any other test I could try since I don't have spare parts to change anything out? Please help me solve this.
This thing has official specs here: https://www.antec.com/product/power/vp550-plus. If you see them, it's low quality, so change this one out right now. Since electricity goes to all parts of the PC, a power supply is the most important piece inside. That means you should never cut corners on your PSU. Also, don't buy used ones for sure. For another opinion about your PSU, check this list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...aS...973454078# You'll see it as Tier E. For a new one, I suggest any from Tier A like Seasonic Focus/Vertex/PRIME, Corsair RMx/RMi/HXi/AXi, Super Flower Leadex Gold/Platinum/Titanium. Anything 550W works fine; 650W is even better. My three PCs use a lot of Seasonic stuff. I have PRIME 650 Titanium (Tier A+), PRIME Ultra 650 Titanium (Tier A+), and Focus PX-550 units (Tier A). Full specs with pictures are in my sigs. Lowering the load on your Antec helps keep it running steady so it doesn't crash your GPU. Still, a new PSU is better. Now I want to know what kind of spare 450W unit you have and its model number or part number. Also, how old is this one? Was it bought brand new or was it used/refurbished?
Antec One was bought about five years ago. The other one was three or four years older than this. Both were new and never used. My old 450W power supply has its label ripped off. It's super cheap and very unreliable now. I kept it just in case I needed it for something special later on. I don't remember the brand name anymore. The Antec One was the best deal I could get back then because other PSUs were way too expensive at that time. Even though this one is still cheaper than my current setup, I felt like it worked better than what I had before. I'm not planning to use two PSUs right now. It was just for testing purposes. So if the fault is sure on the PSU itself, then I will definitely get a better one later this time.
Well, it is quite likely since the 10th test you did, confirmed as much. No point to keep bad PSU around to power something. Since chances that it goes "pop" and fries everything it is connected to - is high. Same with your Antec unit since it is such a poor quality.