My gaming PC randomly powers off during games with no blue screen or warning, then boots back up normally. The build has an 850W power supply, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, an MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi motherboard, and two DDR5 memory sticks. I've already changed some BIOS settings, but I haven't been able to identify the cause. I tested the system with OCCT, FurMark, and SilverBench, and none of them produced errors or caused a shutdown. What should I check next?
3 Answers
Reset the BIOS to its defaults and test with EXPO disabled first. If the shutdowns stop, the memory profile or related voltage and timing settings may be unstable. You can then re-enable EXPO later and test again, but avoid changing several BIOS settings at once.
Start by monitoring CPU and GPU temperatures while gaming, then test the processor and graphics card separately. Stress tests passing doesn’t completely rule out a problem, since the issue may only happen with a particular game or combined load. Also check Windows Event Viewer for critical power-loss entries around the time of the shutdown.
Since the computer loses power completely instead of showing a crash or freezing first, I’d investigate power delivery and protection settings. An 850W unit should generally be enough for this hardware, but the exact PSU model and cabling still matter. Make sure the graphics card uses the correct power cable, preferably separate PSU cables rather than one split cable, and reseat the GPU, power connectors, RAM, and motherboard power leads. Also test with EXPO off. A hard power cut is more suggestive of power protection, overheating, or a connection issue than insufficient total wattage.
It is always a complete hard power-off, and then the system starts back up. There’s no crash screen or freeze beforehand.
I ran OCCT, FurMark, and SilverBench, and everything completed without errors or a shutdown, so I’m still not sure what is triggering it during games.