I think I fried something on my gaming PC, but don't know what

[Metanoia Prime]

Long story short, I was trying to plug in a UCB Type-C headphone to the back of my NZXT tower yesterday so that I could try to use it for game chat in R6 Siege. I put it into the USB Type-C slot, but Windows didn't seem to pick it up. Without looking, I took it out and slid it into the next slot, not realizing that it was a regular USB slot. Unless there was some massive coincidence in timing, it appears that this action shorted my computer, as it instantly died on me.

It wouldn't boot for the next five minutes or so, sometimes clicking the fans on but most of the time just staying completely dead. Eventually, I turned off the power and turned it back on, and it booted. I thought it might have been a one time thing, then I went to play Rocket League and it shutdown mid-match once more. No warning. No BSOD. Just dead.

I had to run through the same process of unplugging or cutting power then waiting a bit before trying and successfully getting it to boot up. Earlier today, I set it to sleep and it wouldn't wake. I had to hold the power button to get it to turn off, then, once again, it refused to boot. Disconnect, wait, rinse, and repeat.

So right now, I've got it on and it appears to function perfectly. All of my apps and games are working seemingly just fine. I loaded the NZXT Cam software and tuned my fans to be a bit more aggressive, as I read online that overheating CPUs can be the primary culprit in these sorts of situations. The issue, I believe, is likely to be something else as I've played plenty of graphically intensive games without a single issue for nearly a year now. I have a Ryzen 7 3700x paired with an RTX 2080 Super on an ASUS TUF Gaming XC570-Plus motherboard.

With that said, where do I start? Is it a mobo issue? How could I most easily and accurately diagnose what is going on? Do you think the USB thing did short it, or was it incredibly coincidental timing? Any help is appreciated!

 

[ZServ]

This sounds like a power supply issue. Get a tester for it.

 

[Deleted member 79451]

Whenever the computer shuts down unexpectedly out of the blue without apparent error messages, especially when gaming, I think power supply is failing. This happened to me, and it wasn't the most intensive games that would cause the system to shut down.

Additionally, plugging in a USB device could use a power dip in your north bridge enough to power down the computer. Now I had this happen in an even older incident during Oculus VR which is super power heavy, because I was tweaking my voltages in such a way that if the north bridge dipped it would go an take the RAM with it, causing instability. But it was literally the USB power draw of the cameras & headset that was causing an issue that time.

So I'm thinking power power power for your description.

 

[gebler]

It does sound like you shorted the USB port. USB ports are often protected by dedicated polyfuses, which "heal" when they cool down. Perhaps your problems following the original short were caused by not giving the polyfuse enough time to cool down, so that it triggered too easily afterwards. If it works fine now, hopefully there was no lasting damage.

The only thing that doesn't quite fit this theory is that your whole computer shut down. That wouldn't be necessary if the USB ports were separately fused, so perhaps you triggered some kind of short-circuit protection on a higher level, like in the power supply. But the conclusion could be the same — there's a good chance nothing broke permanently and that the short-circuit protection did reset itself once it cooled down sufficiently. Otherwise, I'd look into replacing the power supply.

 

[Lump]

It's not an NZXT H1, right?

 

[Liquid Snake]

Just took a few A+ (computer repair) classes in college, and while I'm not an expert in the subject, it does indeed sound like a power-supply issue.

What kind of cooling do you use for your CPU? Using MSI afterburner would allow you to monitor your CPU temps in real-time, to see if that's the problem, but as I said above these symptoms seem to point to power supply, without further information, such as:

What kind of HDD? Or are you using an SSD?

Also, do you hear any audible beeps from your motherboard during boot?

Have you ever used Event Viewer? If not, find it by typing in "Event Viewer" in the search bar, open it and go to Custom Views --> Administrative Events. Look for information there, it may or may not have been logged. You can click on the "level" box to sort events from top to bottom according to severity, with Critical Events appearing at the top. But there should be relevant information near the top (most recent).

 

[ghostcrew]

Sounds like PSU to me. I friend mind earlier last year. Thankfully, if it is, that's a super cheap part to replace. Cost me about £70 to get a store to fit me a new one. Good as new now.

 

[Relix]

Sounds like a PSU issue. Good luck finding a decent one these days. Not sure if supply normalized.

 

[Metanoia Prime]

I'm guessing it's the PSU as many have speculated. I have the Cooler Master 650 Gold 80+, which I believe came with a five year warranty. I guess I have to get in touch.

Latest report: I played Siege for about an hour without a single issue. I quit, and the moment I went to launch Rocket League, off it went again. Fans weren't high or anything. Do you guys still think it's the PSU?

 

[Marche90]

I'm guessing it's the PSU as many have speculated. I have the Cooler Master 650 Gold 80+, which I believe came with a five year warranty. I guess I have to get in touch.

Latest report: I played Siege for about an hour without a single issue. I quit, and the moment I went to launch Rocket League, off it went again. Fans weren't high or anything. Do you guys still think it's the PSU?

Click to shrink...

Sounds like a power supply issue. One of my friends had a similar issue, but his case was with Cities: Skylines and Fortnite. It would shut down without warning from the latter. Changing the Power Supply fixed his issue

 

[Metanoia Prime]

Sounds like a power supply issue. One of my friends had a similar issue, but his case was with Cities: Skylines and Fortnite. It would shut down without warning from the latter. Changing the Power Supply fixed his issue

Click to shrink...

Got it.

Do you or does anyone here know if the fact that my PSU is fully modular change anything? Or is that immaterial to the issue?

 

[Deleted member 34714]

Got it.

Do you or does anyone here know if the fact that my PSU is fully modular change anything? Or is that immaterial to the issue?

Click to shrink...

Modular PSU changes nothing. But I agree with others that your PSU may be on it's way out and don't use the same cables from your current one to a new PSU just to be sure.

 

[Butch]

It's not an NZXT H1, right?

Click to shrink...

Was thinking the same thing but I doubt it can be triggered from the usb, right?

 

[Deleted member 13560]

I'm guessing it's the PSU as many have speculated. I have the Cooler Master 650 Gold 80+, which I believe came with a five year warranty. I guess I have to get in touch.

Latest report: I played Siege for about an hour without a single issue. I quit, and the moment I went to launch Rocket League, off it went again. Fans weren't high or anything. Do you guys still think it's the PSU?

Click to shrink...

I had this issue. It turned out that my ASUS Strix X99 motherboard was gradually dying. Didn't turn out to be my PSU at all. I would have to try to boot the computer multiple times. It would just run the fans and turn off before POSTING. At first it would just turn off after a few minutes to a few hours of playing. Then it later would just turn on and immediately shut down in about 1 second.

I jumped the PSU and it worked fine when running with just my pump. Usually when I've had PSUs die on me they are completely toast.

I also did some research my specific ASUS motherboard and discovered that this happened to tons of other people and that the MOBO was just crap. I also learned that the issues that were occurring with my setup fell in line with a dying mobo rather than a PSU.

 

[Metanoia Prime]

I had this issue. It turned out that my ASUS Strix X99 motherboard was gradually dying. Didn't turn out to be my PSU at all. I would have to try to boot the computer multiple times. It would just run the fans and turn off before POSTING. At first it would just turn off after a few minutes to a few hours of playing. Then it later would just turn on and immediately shut down in about 1 second.

I jumped the PSU and it worked fine when running with just my pump. Usually when I've had PSUs die on me they are completely toast.

I also did some research my specific ASUS motherboard and discovered that this happened to tons of other people and that the MOBO was just crap. I also learned that the issues that were occurring with my setup fell in line with a dying mobo rather than a PSU.

Click to shrink...

Huh. Yeah, rare times it does try to turn on, it'll spin the fans for about half a second then die. The light on the cooler even turns on for that half second, then just dies. I have to turn the power off on the back of my tower and wait before trying to power it on again. Eventually it'll fire back up.

Nonetheless, I've submitted an RMA request with Cooler Master for the PSU. If that doesn't fix it, then I'll move on to the motherboard.

 

[Deleted member 13560]

Huh. Yeah, rare times it does try to turn on, it'll spin the fans for about half a second then die. The light on the cooler even turns on for that half second, then just dies. I have to turn the power off on the back of my tower and wait before trying to power it on again. Eventually it'll fire back up.

Nonetheless, I've submitted an RMA request with Cooler Master for the PSU. If that doesn't fix it, then I'll move on to the motherboard.

Click to shrink...

That's exactly what happened with me. It became more frequent over time until it stopped posting at all.

It won't hurt to start with the PSU though. If it's not the PSU at least you have a fresh one.[/QUOTE]

 

[Deleted member 79451]

I'm guessing it's the PSU as many have speculated. I have the Cooler Master 650 Gold 80+, which I believe came with a five year warranty. I guess I have to get in touch.

Latest report: I played Siege for about an hour without a single issue. I quit, and the moment I went to launch Rocket League, off it went again. Fans weren't high or anything. Do you guys still think it's the PSU?

Click to shrink...

Yep, that really solidifies the PSU issue to me. I would have shutdowns in a mid tier game whenever power fluctuated. Specifically I was playing the graphically demanding (but not RTX or anything) turn based strategy game Panzer Corps 2. Ending a turn on some maps would cause a shut down 100% of the time (like, click the button, BOOM power down). Even stress tests were completely stable, and I could get over an hour into a RTX game before it would crash. It was the change in power state that the PSU couldn't keep up with.

Swapped out the PSU with a new one of the exact same model and it was instantly perfectly fixed.

(still a remote chance of the mobo, of course, because mobos have to regulate the voltage)

 

[Metanoia Prime]

That's exactly what happened with me. It became more frequent over time until it stopped posting at all.

It won't hurt to start with the PSU though. If it's not the PSU at least you have a fresh one.

Click to shrink...

No doubt.

Yep, that really solidifies the PSU issue to me. I would have shutdowns in a mid tier game whenever power fluctuated. Specifically I was playing the graphically demanding (but not RTX or anything) turn based strategy game Panzer Corps 2. Ending a turn on some maps would cause a shut down 100% of the time (like, click the button, BOOM power down). Even stress tests were completely stable, and I could get over an hour into a RTX game before it would crash. It was the change in power state that the PSU couldn't keep up with.

Swapped out the PSU with a new one of the exact same model and it was instantly perfectly fixed.

(still a remote chance of the mobo, of course, because mobos have to regulate the voltage)

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I'm hopeful that the issue is constrained to the PSU itself. And the symptoms seem to match 1:1 with typical PSU issues, though there certainly appears to be overlap with issues associated with a damaged mobo. Let's hope for the best. Ticket is in with Cooler Master, but if I understand correctly, I'll have to send mine in before they send me one, and that's a bummer.

 

[Metanoia Prime]

Update: Got a Corsair RM650x today and swapped it in for my Cooler Master 650. That seems to have fixed the problem, at least so far. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for your help, fam!