I upgraded from an ASUS Radeon RX 570 8GB and a six-year-old Thermaltake Smart RGB 500W power supply to an ASUS GeForce RTX 5070 Dual OC 12GB and an ASUS TUF Gaming 850W Gold PSU. The rest of the system is a Ryzen 5 3600, ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming with BIOS 3003, 16GB DDR4-3200, and Windows 10 Pro.
Since the upgrade, the computer abruptly shuts down or restarts after about 5–10 minutes of playing WoW: Forever or WoW Classic, especially after increasing the graphics settings. This never happened with the RX 570 and previous PSU.
I performed a clean Windows reset, installed the current Nvidia Game Ready driver, reseated all power and component connections, and tested both the PSU's native 16-pin GPU cable and the included adapter using two separate 8-pin PCIe cables. The behavior is the same with either connection. The PC is connected directly to a wall outlet along with only low-power devices such as the monitor and network equipment.
What should I test next? Could the GPU or PSU be defective, or might this be related to BIOS compatibility, overheating, or another issue?
3 Answers
An 850W Gold unit should have plenty of capacity for this system, so the wattage rating alone is unlikely to be the problem. Check CPU and GPU temperatures and watch for a sudden loss of power rather than a normal Windows crash. Running a GPU stress test, then a CPU test, and finally both together can help show whether the failure follows GPU load or overall system load. Also check Windows Event Viewer for an unexpected-power-loss entry, although that usually confirms the symptom rather than identifying the cause.
Since the issue began immediately after the hardware change, test one variable at a time. Try the previous graphics card, verify the new card is fully seated, and confirm the 16-pin connector is inserted completely with no sharp bend right at the plug. If possible, test the RTX 5070 in another known-good system or test a different reliable PSU in this one. Updating the motherboard BIOS may also be worthwhile for newer GPU compatibility, but a BIOS problem is less likely than a faulty GPU, cable, or power supply if the machine simply cuts out under load.
If you still have the RX 570, reinstall it and run the same game and settings for a while. If the old card is stable, that points toward the new GPU or something specific to its power demand. It does not completely rule out the PSU, though: a defective PSU may only fail when the newer card creates higher transient loads.
That makes sense. I’ll try the old card, while keeping in mind that a PSU fault could remain hidden if the RX 570 never draws enough power to trigger it.