Why is My PC Suddenly Shutting Down?

Sudden shutdowns can be caused by a wide array of problems, these issues are typically related to power/cooling. In this guide, we will run you through the process of identifying the potential cause for your PC suddenly shutting down.

External Power Sources

Firstly, we will need to make sure how the PC receives its power. If the system is not getting sufficient power when doing intensive tasks such as gaming, the PC can suddenly shut down. If your system is shutting down at random when under higher intensity use, you may be encountering what is referred to as a "Brownout".

A brownout is caused by either electrical problems in your house or by the electricity provider encountering a grid overload. If you have electrical problems or your power network in your region is prone to brownouts, your total voltage to your house will drop. Computers are sensitive to voltage drops, which can cause your PC to shut down if the system is getting insufficient voltage. You can protect your PC from a brownout with what is called a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply), a UPS is pictured below.

A UPS will maintain consistent power to your PC at all times, if any voltage drops from a brownout occur your PC will continue to operate. Additionally, a UPS has the added bonus of providing power to your PC during a blackout to prevent you from losing important unsaved files. As one more added bonus, a UPS will also protect you from power surges and the manufacturer of a UPS may even insure your system against damage. When purchasing a UPS, make sure it supports the amount of wattage your PC can potentially pull, if your power supply can use up to 600 watts, then get a UPS with a minimum of 600W or more. 

If this does not resolve your problem with your PC shutting down, the issue may not be related to any external power, but instead may be related to something within the PC itself.

Overheating

Sometimes a PC can suddenly power down if it were to go over a certain threshold in heat. A PC is designed to shut down automatically if it were to be at an unsafe temperature. We recommend monitoring your CPU and GPU temperatures via our CAM software. If your CPU were to exceed a temperature of 100C or your GPU were to exceed a temperature of 95C prior to the PC shutting down, this would be the cause of this problem. If you are overheating, please contact our Customer Service Team for additional assistance. If this is not the problem, this may be related to a defective component within your PC.

Hardware Defects

In some circumstances, a defective product within your system may be causing your PC to suddenly shutdown. We will need to run a few tests to try and verify if a component is at fault for the sudden shutdown of your PC.

For these tests, we will need you to use a 3rd party piece of software known as OCCT, you can download this at the link below.

https://www.ocbase.com/

OCCT is able to generate artificial workloads for certain scenarios that can help us narrow down the problem further. You can find in OCCT under the section “Test” multiple types of stress tests.

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All of these tests here are designed to push your components to the maximum level of stress they are designed to handle. If a product is defective, typically under stress a sudden shutdown can occur. We recommend you run the following tests, each for an hour-long session.

• CPU: OCCT (for AMD CPUs) or Linpack (for Intel CPUs) Tests
• RAM: Memory Test
• GPU: 3D and VRAM Tests
• PSU: Power Test

Now if any one of these tests triggers your issue within an hour-long session, please reach out to our Customer Service Team with a video of the problem occurring and information on the shutdown.