Unstable PC - lock ups / restarts while under stress

[rhonage]

Hi everyone,

I'm scratching my head over this one.

My specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H
GPU: Gigabyte ATI HD 7850 OC Edition PCI-E 3.0
CPU: Intel Core i3 3220 3.3GHz Cache LGA 1155
PSU: FSP Raider Series 650W 80 Plus Silver
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 64MB 7200rpm HDD SATAIII
OS: Windows 8 64-bit

I'm experiencing restarts on my uncles PC when the GPU/CPU is under stress (Movies, Gaming etc). This has been happening since day 1. I've had overheating issues before, but the temperatures are well within acceptable ranges when the restart / lock up occurs.

The motherboard had a few issues with it to begin with, so that has been recently replaced (which I thought was the problem, but unfortunately not).

I have tried his GPU, PSU, RAM, and HDD on my machine (running on my motherboard) - all of which work together flawlessly. I have also tried running my GPU, PSU, RAM, and HDD on his motherboard - which works fine. This leads me to believe his CPU could be the issue, or a combination of something.

Does anyone have suggestions to check before I dismantle both of the CPU / Heatsinks and swap them over? (I don't really want to if I can help it!)

Thanks in advance!

 

[psydesign123]

check the voltages of the psu in the bios on his mobo

 

[bigdog33]

I would think its the PSU, try ur psu to his system and if it runs great then its PSU..... never go with low quality PSU. Seasonic and Corsair is only brands I would trust. What PSU u have on ur computer?

 

[rhonage]

Thanks for the reply.

What voltages should I be checking for the PSU? I've never dealt with that before.

Cheers

 

[Oreo]

Check Eventviewer for potential causes, there should be Critical/Error Power messages under the System log.

Does sounds like PSU, though. I know you said temps are within an acceptable range, but if you download HWMonitor and monitor temps under load the CPU shouldn't be going above about 85c really, GPU shouldn't really go above 90c. Is that definitely the case ?

Could also run memtest to see if that reports anything.

 

[rhonage]

Hi again,

BIOS version is: F11.

Here are the voltages:
CPU Vcore: 0.984V
Dram Voltage: 1.512V
+3.3V: 3.264V
+12V: 12.096V

Hmm that's weird, the computer just randomly restarted itself just as I was looking. Something weird is going on here :/

Do you think it's the PSU? Cheers

 

[carnageX]

If your BIOS doesn't display the PSU voltages, I would use an actual digital multimeter and measure the voltages coming out of the PSU itself.