Hey everyone, I'm hoping you can help me figure out a serious stability issue I'm having with my PC after a recent lightning strike caused a power outage. Since then, I've been experiencing strange behaviors: the display signal randomly drops on both monitors, audio sometimes continues for a bit, and my GPU occasionally disappears from Device Manager. I've even had my BIOS reset and BitLocker asking for recovery keys at startup. After fixing the BIOS, the GPU reappeared, but now my PC just shuts down completely without warning, like the power was cut off.
Here are some important details:
- PSU: ASUS ROG Strix 1000W Gold
- GPU: RTX 3080 Ti
- RAM: 32 GB DDR5 (currently no XMP)
- It doesn't seem to be overheating, and I've run scans that show no malware. This only started happening after the lightning/power issue.
I've tried resetting the BIOS, disabling XMP, reinstalling GPU drivers, testing with both integrated and dedicated graphics, replacing display cables, and doing a power drain. My suspicion is that the PSU might be damaged by the surge since it seems to work under light loads but shuts down under certain conditions. Could this shut down behavior point to a failing PSU, or could it also be a RAM or motherboard issue? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
2 Answers
I went through a long struggle with a similar issue, and it turned out to be my RAM. I tested everything you could think of and only resolved the weird shutdowns after replacing my RAM sticks. If you've been working with large text files, your RAM could definitely be under stress and might be part of the problem.
It sounds like a PSU failure to me. If you have another power supply you can test, I recommend swapping it in for a day or so to see if the issue persists. The PSU is usually the first to take the hit during a power surge, and if it’s not functioning correctly, it can shut down abruptly to protect your other components. I had a similar situation after a thunderstorm, and it turned out to be the PSU. Replacing it fixed everything!
I bought my PSU because it had good reviews for protection, but I’m no expert on testing them. Is there an easy way to determine if mine is damaged?
Could it really be related to handling those large files? I’ve had a lot of pressure on my RAM lately too, so that’s a good point.