[SOLVED] Heat issues - How do I troubleshoot PC force-restarting?

EttinTheBreton

Over the past week, as I've been playing ESO, there have been two instances where my monitor loses its signal, my computer itself shuts down, and then immediately restarts. It happens so quick that my fans don't even stop spinning. My restart is fast because my Windows 10 is on my SSD, but I do not receive any notifications about the computer not shutting down properly. Everything runs just fine for the next few days, so I don't think any hardware is damaged.

I've monitored my CPU temperature, and after playing ESO all day the temperature remains usually around 40 degrees C, with a max close to 60 and a min close to 30 degrees C. My Tj max value for my CPU is 90 degrees C, so I doubt this is a temperature issue where overheating causes the restart.

As I said, this has happened twice over the past week. Before that, it happened once or twice back in June. I put together my PC in May. All other times my PC runs quite smoothly, but when I play ESO I'm afraid of this happening. The restart could be totally un-related to ESO, but it has yet to happen without it running. How do I even trouble shoot something like this? Could it be an issue with Windows 10? Should I double check my power connections within my PC? Should I try getting a new outlet installed, and use a new surge protector? Any help is appreciated.

EDIT:
September 2nd, 2017: I've played maybe 4 hours today. Yesterday I updated my GeForce GTX 760 GPU driver using the GeForce Experience program found here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/geforce-experience/ Right away I noticed improvements after my ESO graphics settings were optimized. However, just now my computer did the forced restart again. Monitor goes black, case fans never stop spinning, and Windows 10 reboots like nothing happened. Now I'm going to go buy some compressed air and give my computer a good cleaning. I doubt it's the temperature, as the highest I hit last night was 61 degrees C after playing for a few hours.

EDIT:
September 2nd, 2017: I've now checked all connections inside and blew out a bunch of dust from my CPU cooling fan heat sink and other places. Airflow out the back of my case seems to be better now, so hopefully this doesn't happen again. I'll post if it does, and next I'll try taking out my GPU and putting it back in.

EDIT:
September 2nd, 2017: Crashed for the second time today. Either my CPU cooler isn't working properly, I need new RAM, or a new GPU? I'm kinda lost at this point. I'll check all connections tomorrow, and try to re-seat my GPU.

EDIT:
September 3rd, 2017: I've learned my CPU is notorious for running hot. There is a memory clock boost that is able to be turned off in the BIOS settings. After a long battle with the forces of Molag Bal inside my computer, I have been able to turn off this boost setting. Monitoring temps for the rest of tonight.

EDIT:
September 3rd, 2017: Just played a session of ESO, and the max temperature reached was 42 degrees C, which is a nice 20 degrees C cooler than what I have been seeing. Using the Windows 10 Event Viewer, I'm now able to see logs of the crashes, so I will do more research to confirm that it was a temperature issue. I'm pretty sure that boost setting in the BIOS was the main issue, but I will keep monitoring this in the future. Tomorrow I'll clean up this thread for future searches if other people run into this problem.

Nestor

How to stop Windows 10 from rebooting with a hardware failure:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-computer-restarts-without-warning

However, you need to fiind out why this is happening. There are 3 common causes, in order of cost to fix:

1. Driver Corruption - Update or Reinstall your drivers
2. Overheating - Get a can of compressed air and blow out the dust, or add more fans to the case with more blowing out than in, best air flow is in at the lower front, and out the upper rear, but your case will determine what you can do
3. You have a video card going bad or other intermittent heat related issue. Common one is Heat Creep where the video card works its way out of the slot as it heats up and cools down. Reseat the Video Card or other cards.

EttinTheBreton

Nestor wrote: »

How to stop Windows 10 from rebooting with a hardware failure:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-computer-restarts-without-warning

However, you need to fiind out why this is happening. There are 3 common causes, in order of cost to fix:

1. Driver Corruption - Update or Reinstall your drivers
2. Overheating - Get a can of compressed air and blow out the dust, or add more fans to the case with more blowing out than in, best air flow is in at the lower front, and out the upper rear, but your case will determine what you can do
3. You have a video card going bad or other intermittent heat related issue. Common one is Heat Creep where the video card works its way out of the slot as it heats up and cools down. Reseat the Video Card or other cards.

Thanks @Nestor , I've got a lot to work with now. I'll keep the thread updated over time as I go through these steps, and document if the restart ever happens again. Thank you!