I've been dealing with a frustrating issue where my PC randomly shuts down while I'm playing games, and it's been happening for about six months now. Initially, I thought the problem was confined to certain games, like Helldivers 2, so I stopped playing those. However, it's recently started happening much more often, even in games like Deadzone Rogue, which uses the Unreal Engine 5. Just yesterday, it shut down right after I exited that game and opened Firefox, which leads me to wonder if it's a RAM issue.
I've checked the event viewer after these shutdowns and the only error I see is: "The driver DriverWUDFRd failed to load. Device: ROOTDISPLAY001. Status: 0xC0000365."
I swapped out my power supply and replaced the power cable to the outlet, but that didn't help. My GPU drivers have been updated and downgraded multiple times using DDU, and while I haven't been monitoring temperatures closely, they seemed fine the last time I checked. I also tried turning off the XMP profile in BIOS, which seemed to help temporarily, but I still faced a couple of shutdowns with it off. Any insights or suggestions on how to fix this would be highly appreciated!
5 Answers
Check that your power supply unit (PSU) is up to the task. If it's underpowered, it can cause random shutdowns without error messages. Upgrading to a stronger PSU could resolve your issue and is generally a cheaper fix!
Have you run any hardware diagnostics on your RAM, drives, and CPU? You might want to try stress testing with a tool like 3DMark to see if any components are failing under load. That could shed some light on what's going wrong!
Have you checked if your cooling fans are working properly? Sometimes, dust buildup can prevent fans from spinning efficiently. It might be worth cleaning them out and ensuring everything's running as it should!
You should definitely use the event viewer to narrow down the issue. The error you mentioned might point toward a software problem. You could install tools like Claude Desktop, which helps simplify running diagnostics via PowerShell. It's pretty straightforward!
It sounds like your system might have corrupt files. Try running the SFC command and also stress test your CPU with software like OCCT to see if it's thermal throttling. If you're using an AIO cooler, HWiNFO can help check power readings. If those are fine, it might be worth replacing the thermal paste or even checking your RAM or motherboard.
Good point! I checked and all the fans are working except for the back exhaust fan, which I swapped out. I'll keep an eye on the temps and see if it helps.