Lately, my Windows 11 desktop has been crashing when I play some higher-end games, specifically Dead By Daylight, Helldivers 2, and Alan Wake. The PC powers off for a split second and then restarts. This typically happens right when I load into a game or perform a specific action, like clicking to read an interaction in Alan Wake. I've checked the event log, which only says there was an unexpected shutdown. My PC has good cooling, so I doubt it's overheating, and a Windows Memory Diagnostic test showed my RAM is fine. Is there an easy way to figure out what's causing these crashes?
2 Answers
Do you happen to have an AMD GPU? A recent driver update for them has caused a lot of similar issues for users. If you do, you might want to roll back the driver and see if that helps.
It could be that your GPU isn't getting enough power, especially since it only crashes with those demanding games. When you start loading into a game, that’s when the GPU has to handle a lot of rendering, which might cause the shutdown. Have you tried reinstalling any of the games to see if that fixes it? Sometimes it's just a bug with the game itself that can be resolved that way.
Is there a reliable way to monitor if the GPU is having power issues? This is happening consistently across multiple games, so I'm leaning toward something besides the games causing it. Thanks!
No, I have Nvidia. Thanks for the heads-up though!