Bizarre Computer Problem

[Devon68]

So a friend of mine has a problem with his PC. He has a similarly spec'd system as me. An Fx 6100 cpu, a 970A-ud3 motherboard, 2x8GB of ram, samsung 850 EVO drive, R9 380 gpu and a thermaltake smart 630W psu.
His system randomly crashes. The crash happens randomly as the screen goes black and the sound from the game can be heard in the background. When he restarts his system the PC sometimes wont recognize the gpu. Sometimes when he restarts his PC the motherboard gives out 1 long beep and 2 short beeps meaning from the manual : Monitor or graphics card error .Sometimes he can game for even 2 hours without a problem, but sometimes it crashes even while watching a youtube video. He tried downloading various versions of the amd driver with no success.
He gave me his gpu to test it out as he suspected it was the problem.
I tried running:
Unigine Superposition 1.1, Unigine Valley 1.0, Unigine Heaven 4.0, Furmark 1.27 for 5 minutes, Basemark GPU, Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark and played Left 4 Dead on it.
The highest temp I got from running furmark was 71c and no crashes whatsoever in the past 3-4 days. He is using his older GTX 660 with no problems for the past few days.
He is wondering weather he should change his PSU first and see it the problem persists or change the mobo cpu and ram?
What can be the problem?

 

[Jose Jeswin]

change the psu please...

 

[Bill_Bright]

He is wondering weather he should change his PSU first and see it the problem persists or change the mobo cpu and ram?

He should absolutely change the PSU first. Everything inside the case, including the motherboard, CPU, and RAM depend on good, clean, stable power. He to verify he is suppling that before even thinking of replacing anything else.

Electronics Troubleshooting 101 dictates you start at the wall. Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Are the required voltages present, clean and stable and being delivered to the connected components?

But, he should first make sure the interior is clean of heat trapping dust, the fans are spinning, and all cable connections are securely fastened. If all okay there, swap in a known good PSU and see what happens.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

This could also be a memory issue - I experienced similar problems when I was putting together a Ryzen 2600 rig and it didnt like the memory i paired it with.

If its not too much trouble. Swap the memory from your PC into his and see what happens. If it still happens then swap his graphics card out with your one -- If he still has issues then maybe consider buying a new power supply but only when you've tested that his parts are all working correctly and there is nothing wrong with them.

Worst case scenario it could even the the board thats pooping out.

 

[Devon68]

If its not too much trouble. Swap the memory from your PC into his and see what happens. If it still happens then swap his graphics card out with your one -- If he still has issues then maybe consider buying a new power supply but only when you've tested that his parts are all working correctly and there is nothing wrong with them.

The ram we could try but seeing as we both have the same kit of ram it might not be the issue. As for swapping the GPU's that I'm afraid wont do anything since he has his old GTX 660 in the system now with no problems while I'm testing his R9 380. Besides I have a HD 7770 1Gb the weakest of them all, so if a 660 makes no problems, mine definitely wont. But thanks for the suggestion.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

The ram we could try but seeing as we both have the same kit of ram it might not be the issue. As for swapping the GPU's that I'm afraid wont do anything since he has his old GTX 660 in the system now with no problems while I'm testing his R9 380. Besides I have a HD 7770 1Gb the weakest of them all, so if a 660 makes no problems, mine definitely wont. But thanks for the suggestion.

No ram kit is identical. Just because you see a 2500k clock to the moon doesnt mean that yours will do the same or get anywhere close.

You have the same ram kit yes, But his could be faulty. Im not talking about an incompatibility issue. obviously there isnt an issue there because he's been running the same kit for a long time and never had a problem till now unless he did a bios update which messed some things up.

Since you have already tested the GPU, test the ram then consider switching out the PSU if problems persist.

 

[Devon68]

I'll see what he says. i'll drop a link to this page to him so he can see and decide what to do further. Any other suggestion is apreciated.

 

[eidairaman1]

I'll see what he says. i'll drop a link to this page to him so he can see and decide what to do further. Any other suggestion is apreciated.

Power Supply then memory.

 

[Devon68]

Update:
It seems many of who said it's the Psu were wright.
He bought a new PSU. It's a Seasonic S12 III 550W 80+Bronze PSU.
No problems and he has 5 years of warranty.

Thank you all for your replies.

 

[eidairaman1]

Update:
It seems many of who said it's the Psu were wright.
He bought a new PSU. It's a Seasonic S12 III 550W 80+Bronze PSU.
No problems and he has 5 years of warranty.

Thank you all for your replies.

My psu is 7 years old lol

 

[Devon68]

My psu is 7 years old lol

Yeah it seems that going with a Seasonic psu you just cant go wrong. And this is coming from me with a cheap ass psu. But lets be real my whole system is not worth more than 80-120$. In my next build I will buy an Seasonic psu. Everything depends on the Gpu and when it will be available at a reasonable price. But I'm aiming for an new build in 2023.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yeah it seems that going with a Seasonic psu you just cant go wrong. And this is coming from me with a cheap ass psu. But lets be real my whole system is not worth more than 80-120$. In my next build I will buy an Seasonic psu. Everything depends on the Gpu and when it will be available at a reasonable price. But I'm aiming for an new build in 2023.

Certain Antec, Rosewill, EVGA and Corsair models are Seasonic OEM, but whats to say about those companies warranties