Newly built computer intermittent crashes when playing games

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1

A couple of weeks ago I put together a new computer. Since then I have been suffering unpredictable crashes where my computer restarts with no warning when playing games. Initially I assumed it was something to do with the game I was playing (red dead redemption 2). This week when I got cities skylines 2 (which runs fine otherwise) it would only let me play a few minutes before it started rebooting.

Since then I have been trying everything i could think of to isolate the issue, but I have had no luck. Sometimes I can only play for a few seconds before it crashes, other times I play for hours with no issues. So far, I have tried the following:

  • Updated motherboard BIOS to the latest none beta version
  • Tried to replicate the issue outside gaming with phoronix-test-suites stress-runs ( I assumed that if it were a power supply issue or overheating that with enough load it would trigger, but no)
  • Lowered the RAM speed
  • Run memtest
  • Scowered journalctl, but nothing jumps out

System specs:

  • Fedora 38

  • Nvidia's driver from rpmfusion version 535.113.01

  • MSI PRO B650-P WIFI - bios version 7D78v17

  • AMD Ryzen™ 5 7600X (with Noctua NH-U12S cooler)

  • 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR5 Vengeance Black, PC5-41600 (5200)

  • ASUS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 DUAL OC V2 12G 

  • 650W Seasonic G12-GM-650 80PLUS Gold

  • 2TB Intel SSD 670p Series, M.2

I am very grateful for any help or suggestions that anyone has.

2

What is your power supply rating?
I recall that getting enough 12V amps was an issue with my 3060.

Have you tried unplugging the GPU and reseating its extra 12V connections?

Oh and I recall that there are specific 12V leads on the power supply that must be used for the GPU, but it has been a while so I am not sure on this point.

3

Hi Barry,

I really appreciate your suggestions.

I’ve reseated the GPU and checked the 12V connections. I’ll try and play some cities skylines and see what happens.

My power supply is 650W. I’ve just checked the minimum that ASUS recommend (probably should have done this before buying) and for a 3060 twinned with a Ryzen 5 they suggest >550W. I haven’t got any RGB, extra drives etc, or anything else that should be draining the power, so I assume that is fine.

I thought the PSU might be the issue too and I was trying to replicate the fault outside of games using phoronix-test-suite. I figured if the issue was with the PSU then running a benchmark that runs the GPU and all CPU cores at 100% for an extended time would trigger it, but so far it hasn’t. The only thing I haven’t been able to do is run something that also uses a lot of RAM and fills the VRAM on the GPU. So it might still be the PSU, but I need to push it further to trigger it.