My friend recently upgraded his PC from a Ryzen 5 7600 with a 3060 Ti to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with a 9070 XT. Ever since the upgrade in mid-February, he's been experiencing random shutdowns while gaming—no blue screens of death or any real error messages, just sudden power-offs. Before this upgrade, everything was running smoothly.
The main error popping up in the Event Viewer is "Unable to load Pluton-Windows firmware. Status Code: STATUS_SUCCESS, Reason: Failed to apply firmware." We initially thought it might have something to do with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), so we disabled that, but the issue persists.
Here's the setup: 7800X3D, Asus Tuf Gaming B650M-E, RX 9070 XT, and a Silverstone DA850R-GMA power supply. I have a similar setup (same power supply, CPU, and GPU) and I'm not having any issues.
We've tried several troubleshooting steps including:
- Stock RAM speeds
- Disabling TPM
- Updating BIOS and chipset
- Driver updates
- Disabling Virtualization-Based Security (VBS)
- Resetting BIOS to defaults
- Checking the health and stability of the drives/RAM
- Reducing the power usage of the CPU and GPU to rule out PSU issues.
The next steps are to reinstall Windows (if necessary) and test with the old CPU to check if the 7800X3D is faulty. I'll keep you all posted on what we try next!
2 Answers
Have you tried to get dump files for better troubleshooting? If your friend can access Windows normally or via Safe Mode, they should check the C:WindowsMinidump directory for any crash logs. If there are dump files present, they can zip and share them using a file hosting site like Catbox or MediaFire. This helps get to the bottom of any hidden issues. Also, consider adjusting the dump settings to ensure multiple files are available for analysis!
Did they upgrade the power supply during the build? It might be a low-quality PSU that can't handle the upgraded components. If it's running at max capacity or below spec, that could easily cause the system to shut down unexpectedly. Just make sure the PSU can support the total wattage needed!
The Silverstone DA850-GMR is rated at 850W, which should be sufficient. I have the same model and I've drawn around 750W consistently without issues, so it might be worth looking into other components.