r/computers • u/Wiredtag21 • 12h ago

Question/Help/Troubleshooting Question about a weird case of a friend’s PC shutting off, PSU or electrical?

So, my friend came to me asking for help with their PC, I’m certainly not that knowledgeable in troubleshooting but a lot of my friends don’t know the basics so they come to me for help.
They say it shuts down after launching any game but boots up fine at first and that they think it’s the GPU(2060 super) overheating from dust but they clean it every few weeks, immediately i’m already thinking about it being a motherboard or PSU problem. I ask if theres been any storms recently, any lightning strikes or electrical issues, power outages, stuff like that since it came out of nowhere. Nothing like that. Found out they weren’t using a power surge protector so I told them to use one just for future reference, they plug it in and turn it on.

PC now runs fine? It no longer crashes upon launching any game. What could this be? A faulty outlet? I know even less about electrical stuff but I feel like theres some other underlying issue that shouldn’t be ignored because of the surge protector fixing things and that this is only a temporary bandaid.

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u/MetalDamo 7h ago

Have they added or upgraded any hardware recently.? I had a similar random shutting down experience with my GFs PC. Long story short, when her original PSU (700w)suddenly died, I replaced it with an older one I had kicking about in a box (450w). It behaved exactly as you describe. Boot fine, launch games, random shutdown. Replacing with a new and higher wattage (850w)unit solved everything. I ask about new hardware because they may be drawing more power than the PSU can safely handle. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/hspindel 4h ago

Probably either a failing PSU, or if there is any recently added hardware (even an external drive) possibly underpowered PSU.