Hey there, everyone! I need some help with a frustrating issue I've been facing since upgrading my computer. I recently swapped out my i5 for an i9 processor, and now it unexpectedly shuts down completely while I'm gaming—no crashes, no blue screens, just a total power-off. At first, I thought it could be a graphics issue since it happened while I was playing Baldur's Gate 3, so I tried some hardware upgrades. I installed a water-cooling system to keep my CPU temperature down from around 100°C to a more reasonable 60-70°C, but that didn't solve the problem. I also replaced my power supply with an 850W unit, thinking it might need more power, but the average wattage for my setup is only about 430W, so that wasn't it either.
I took my rig to Best Buy, and they managed to fix the issue for a few months, but the shutdowns have returned. I started to think it was related to graphics or maybe the game saving autosaves, as I kept crashing in Raft after about ten minutes. However, I just had a shutdown while playing Dead Cells, which surely shouldn't be that taxing on the system. I did some digging and found an error in the Event Viewer that keeps showing up before these shutdowns, indicating an issue with Secure Boot needing to be updated. I updated the BIOS, but I'm not sure what else to do. If I can provide further details from the Event Viewer, just let me know! Thanks for any suggestions!
5 Answers
I faced a similar shutdown issue, and it turned out to be a problem with the CPU. It might be worth considering if everything else seems good.
Did the Best Buy team explain what they did to fix it before? Maybe replicating their steps could help again. It's worth trying to find out what they did even if it seemed vague at the time.
I had a problem like this before too, and RMA'ing the CPU ended up solving all my issues. If nothing else works, it could be worth checking into!
Have you thought about turning off Secure Boot for now? That might help eliminate one variable while you're troubleshooting this issue.
Have you checked for any crash dump files? Those logs can give us insights into what's going wrong. If you can access Windows, try looking in C:WindowsMinidump for any files. If you find some, zip them up and share them for analysis. It's often crucial to have multiple dump files for a clear understanding of the issue!
I wish I knew! They didn't give a clear response, which is why I jokingly called it black magic. Whatever they did worked for a bit, but now I'm stuck again.