Hey everyone, I'm having a frustrating issue with my PC that's been happening for about two months now. It randomly restarts, and when it does, the screen goes black, fans stop, the AIO pump stops, and then it powers back up. Initially, I could get back to the Windows 11 login screen, but now it gets stuck in a loop of restarting every few seconds. The only way to stop it is by turning off the PSU.
This problem can occur at any time—during gaming, web browsing, or even when it's idle or in the BIOS. The only way I've found to consistently trigger it is by pressing 'Restart' in Windows, as that leads to the restarting loop nearly every time. My investigation into this via the Windows Event Viewer points to a Kernel-Power critical error, showing that the system lost power unexpectedly, but only when restarting, not when shutting down normally.
I've built this PC myself and it has some robust specs: Intel i7-14700K, Zotac GeForce RTX 5090, and a be quiet! 1200W PSU, among other components. I haven't overclocked any of my hardware, and I've kept everything updated.
This has turned into an extensive troubleshooting process, including visits to a repair shop, RMA'ing parts, and numerous tests like stress tests and checking temperatures. Despite my efforts, the restarts persist. I suspect it could be a hardware issue, and I'm considering testing my RAM individually or disconnecting storage drives to see if either resolves the problem.
4 Answers
You may want to consider the possibility of your CPU being one of those affected by the known issues with the 13th and 14th gen Intel chips. Since your crashes seem to happen at random, it could be worth testing your CPU further. Installing Nvidia drivers and seeing if that triggers a crash can help determine if that's your culprit.
It sounds frustrating, but since you've ruled out most other components, the motherboard might be the issue. The electrical fault you mentioned could have caused damage there. It might be worth getting a replacement to test it out before committing to a full motherboard swap. Just be sure to backup your data first, in case anything happens.
Running MemTest86 on each stick of RAM one by one could be beneficial. It may help you identify if one of them is faulty without needing to troubleshoot everything at once.
Have you checked if the power/reset pins on your motherboard are seated correctly? I had a similar issue where a loose reset pin caused my PC to restart randomly. It's a simple fix that could potentially solve your problem!
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