My PC suddenly shuts down and restarts, occasionally with a brief BSOD, when loading into battles in Total War: Warhammer 2 or 3, ending a turn in Civilization VI, or launching Cyberpunk 2077 just before the main menu. It remains stable in lighter games such as Deep Rock Galactic, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and League of Legends, and it has also passed hour-long CPU and RAM stress tests in OCCT.
The system has an eight-year-old Intel i7-8700K, Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 5-CF motherboard, an RTX 3060 that is about three years old, 32GB of RAM that is about three years old, and an eight-year-old 750W Corsair power supply. I have already upgraded to Windows 11, updated the BIOS and chipset drivers, and reinstalled the affected games. Event Viewer has not provided anything I can interpret. I also have not had any new minidump files since February.
Could this be the power supply, RAM, motherboard, CPU, or another component? What would be the best way to diagnose it?
3 Answers
The power supply would be my first suspect. An aging PSU can become unstable during sudden gaming power spikes even if the wattage is technically sufficient, while a steady CPU stress test may not reproduce the same combined CPU-and-GPU load. If possible, test with a known-good replacement PSU and see whether the same games still restart the computer. Avoid relying on software readings of PSU voltage alone.
RAM is another realistic possibility. Run MemTest86 from a bootable USB and let it complete several passes, ideally overnight. Test with the memory at its default settings, then test one stick at a time if errors appear. Any reported errors are significant and should be investigated before blaming the games or Windows.
A sudden restart with little or no useful error information often points to a hardware or power problem rather than a normal game crash. Check that automatic restart is disabled so a BSOD can remain visible, and configure Windows to create small memory dumps. If dumps are produced, they may identify a driver; if the machine simply loses power, that makes the PSU, motherboard power delivery, overheating, or GPU power connection more likely.
I’m running MemTest86 now and plan to try a spare power supply afterward if the memory test doesn’t reveal anything.