PC Turned Itself Off

JuliusAugustulus · 10 Oct 2020 at 16:41

Hello all,

Since I’m very much a noob at PC building I ordered a PC from Overclockers UK. It arrived on Wednesday and I decided to hop into the BIOS to see what if anything had been overclocked. I noticed XMP was not enabled and I therefore enabled it. I’ve since been playing Fallout 76 on it for most of Friday and today.

All of a sudden, after around ten hours of use it turned itself off in the middle of a game. I saw a brief flash of light and tried turning it back on several times. Nothing happened. I tried again after I turned the PSU off and on and it started booting but shut down after a couple of seconds. I waited around a minute and turned it on and it booted successfully. I ran an Aida64 stress test and after a few minutes it turned itself off again. I waited and booted it up and went into BIOS. I was told the CMOS had been cleared, so I exited BIOS and ran the stress test again. After ten minutes of stress testing nothing bad had happened. I ran Fallout 76 for a few minutes as I needed to get to work and it was fine.

Does anyone know what has happened? It boots fine now and I can’t smell any burning or see anything that’s burned. I’ve got someone else to see if they could see/smell anything and they couldn’t either. Could it have been enabling XMP? If so why the flash of light and why fail after ten hours of use? I won’t be able to run any more tests until Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for reading.

Specs:

CPU: i9-10900k.
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Master Z490.
RAM: TeamGroup 8Pack 16GB 3600MHz (x2).
GPU: EVGA 2080TI FTW 3 Ultra.
Storage: Samsung 970 1TB Evo Plus and Samsung 970 500GB Evo Plus.
PSU: Phanteks Revolt X 1000W.
Case: Phanteks P600S.

Plec · 10 Oct 2020 at 17:05

JuliusAugustulus said:
>snip<

If you hadn't mentioned the disconcerting 'flash of light' - i would have speculated that your system got upset at 3600MHz and reset itself and then suggested testing at a lower profile/frequency and see how the system faired. If it was stable, i would look at BIOS updates and what they offer - and/or tweak settings/voltages.

But, when you say 'flash of light' - what do you mean exactly?

Does your Phantek have a glass panel and is it on your desk - if so, did you see where the flash emanated from?

I would be tempted to let OcUK know via the Customer Services Forum if you're still within your 28 day return window.

EDIT: was the CPU clocked by OcUK?

JuliusAugustulus · 10 Oct 2020 at 17:52

Plec said:
If you hadn't mentioned the disconcerting 'flash of light' - i would have speculated that your system got upset at 3600MHz and reset itself and then suggested testing at a lower profile/frequency and see how the system faired. If it was stable, i would look at BIOS
But, when you say 'flash of light' - what do you mean exactly?

Does your Phantek have a glass panel and is it on your desk - if so, did you see where the flash emanated from?

EDIT: was the CPU clocked by OcUK?

It wasn’t overclocked by OcUK.

I couldn’t see exactly where the light came from. My case does have a glass side panel but it sits opposite from me. All I could tell was it was probably above the graphics card. I know that’s not much help.

Plec · 10 Oct 2020 at 18:02

JuliusAugustulus said:
I couldn’t see exactly where the light came from. My case does have a glass side panel but it sits opposite from me. All I could tell was it was probably above the graphics card. I know that’s not much help.

Understandable, but brief and bright enough to make you suspect a spark?

Was there an audible pop/fizzle?

Have you looked closely at the memory (uninstalled) and their corresponding DIMM slots?

Have you ran CPUz to check that all your memory is visible?

JuliusAugustulus · 10 Oct 2020 at 18:13

Plec said:
Understandable, but brief and bright enough to make you suspect a spark?

Was there an audible pop/fizzle?

Have you looked closely at the memory (uninstalled) and their corresponding DIMM slots?

Have you ran CPUz to check that all your memory is visible?

I couldn’t hear anything above the sound of my PC. I also couldn’t smell anything burning.

For some reason I didn’t think to look for each stick on CPUz. I think I was too worried lol

I’ll check again when I get in from work.

Edit: I presume setting XMP to on wouldn’t affect my warranty? I can’t see anything about it on my paperwork.

Justintime · 10 Oct 2020 at 19:36

Might be the rgb leds flashed briefly.

JuliusAugustulus · 10 Oct 2020 at 19:40

Justintime said:
Might be the rgb leds flashed briefly.

Yeah, that’s why I’m worried, as I couldn’t see or smell anything out of place, but I don’t want to discount the possibility something might have blown in case it causes issues further down the line.

JuliusAugustulus · 10 Oct 2020 at 23:16

Plec said:
Understandable, but brief and bright enough to make you suspect a spark?

Was there an audible pop/fizzle?

Have you looked closely at the memory (uninstalled) and their corresponding DIMM slots?

Have you ran CPUz to check that all your memory is visible?

I've just ran CPUz and all my memory is visible. 32GBs.

Edit: After running another Aida64 Extreme Stability Test for 30 minutes when I ended it many boxes came up one after another, stating: Aida64 Extreme Access Violation At Address 0042924f. Quite what that means I have no idea.

pp111 · 11 Oct 2020 at 12:07

In passing you should remove the XMP setting until you have proven the system is stable. XMP is by definition overclocking of most of the parts in the system and is not guaranteed to work. The manufacturers test RAM at the XMP setting but they of course can not test the rest of your system. It may well be that the rest of your system is crashing out because of the XMP setting.
If it turns out to be true then you will have to manually adjust the XMP settings to something that works.

redknight333 · 12 Oct 2020 at 10:05

If i was you i'd turn off XMP, save on the anxiety, if you want to run it at stock and forget about it, like i always say if ain't broken don't fix it.
I see you have the same family of motherboard i purchased, but i went for the elite AC and a I7 10700k, still in the build process need to plug in motherboard and cpu power cables and switch it on for the first time, wish me luck.

maklabouhlel · 12 Oct 2020 at 10:54

You could enable XMP and reduce the speed to 3200Mhz.

LukeMurtagh1995 · 12 Oct 2020 at 15:28

Hi all,

Thanks for all the advice. I’ve set XMP back on and turned the DRAM voltage up manually to 1.35V to see if that helps stability. Strangely enough my memory is only running at 3200Mhz despite it being 3600. Even when I manually set it to 3600 it is still only running at 3200 speed. Still, I’d rather keep it at 3200 if that’s stable.

Plec · 12 Oct 2020 at 15:34

LukeMurtagh1995 said:
Strangely enough my memory is only running at 3200Mhz despite it being 3600.

What does CPUz list under SPD tab, timing tables?

Does it show a frequency box 1800MHz?

LukeMurtagh1995 · 12 Oct 2020 at 15:46

1600MHz.

I’ve checked on the BIOS as well and it says 3200MHz.

Plec · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:02

LukeMurtagh1995 said:
1600MHz.

I’ve checked on the BIOS as well and it says 3200MHz.

So, no 1800MHz box?

From your description you have 3200MHz sticks.

They should have a model/code sticker on them - could you put it up so we can identify the memory. This info is also in CPUz within SPD tab.

JuliusAugustulus · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:16

Yes, I’ve just taken one out to take another look at it and it says this:

TDPPD48G3600HC14CBK
8GB DDR4 3600
CL14-15-15-35 1.45V
S/N: 562007010170280

I’ve just realised - since it says 1.45V should I run the DRAM voltage at 1.45V?

Edit: Just realised I used the wrong account - it’s still LukeMurtagh lol. That’s what I get for using my tablet when I was using my phone lol

Joxeon · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:18

JuliusAugustulus said:
Yes, I’ve just taken one out to take another look at it and it says this:

TDPPD48G3600HC14CBK
8GB DDR4 3600
CL14-15-15-35 1.45V
S/N: 562007010170280

I’ve just realised - since it says 1.45V should I run the DRAM voltage at 1.45V?

Yes.

JuliusAugustulus · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:19

Joxeon said:
Yes.

So could that have been causing the issue? Would XMP have not automatically raised the voltage in the first place?

Plec · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:21

JuliusAugustulus said:
Yes, I’ve just taken one out to take another look at it and it says this:

TDPPD48G3600HC14CBK
8GB DDR4 3600
CL14-15-15-35 1.45V
S/N: 562007010170280

I’ve just realised - since it says 1.45V should I run the DRAM voltage at 1.45V?

Edit: Just realised I used the wrong account - it’s still LukeMurtagh lol. That’s what I get for using my tablet when I was using my phone lol

Yes - use 1.45V @3600MHz

But, are you sure you don't have more than 1 profile within the XMP?

*Although, don't understand why it's not listed within CPUz

JuliusAugustulus · 12 Oct 2020 at 16:26

Plec said:
Yes - use 1.45V @3600MHz

But, are you sure you don't have more than 1 profile within the XMP?

*Although, don't understand why it's not listed within CPUz

I’ve only got the one XMP profile.
Also I was only looking on the memory tab in CPUz. I’m now looking under the SPD tab and it says DDR4-2400 (1200 MHz) for Max Bandwidth but under Timings Table for XMP-3596 it has 1798MHz for the frequency.