Computer randomly shutting down... (2024)

Lumpy said:

Hard to say anything without further information, but it does sound like a hardware issue more than anything else.

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Computer is a ~2 month old Dell XPS 9560. Seems odd that it would be fine for a month and then suddenly have issues. Thinking that perhaps something was changed in the rolling beta that is causing an issue

ladybug said:

In general to me that sounds like an overheating issue but when I put together my current computer it started acting like you are describing after a month or so and opening it up I eventually noticed that a power cable was lose.

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I thought overheating myself, as it first happened with the laptop in my... lap. However it is happening regardless of the surface and dust shouldn't be an issue on a 2 month old computer.

Do you think a power cable issue like that is likely on a laptop?

Ah if it is a laptop than no, it shouldn’t be an internal power cable issue or power at all unless there is a serious fault with the laptop. However I have found that will basically every laptop I have owned that if I don’t want them to over heat I can’t sit them down on a surface directly, I would need to stick two or three DVD cases underneath them so that the fans and vents had a clear path for the airflow.

I'm trying to remember but maybe someone else here can answer. Will the windows event viewer log overheating or just log a loss of power from the unexpected shutdown? If not get a program that can monitor temperatures.

ladybug said:

I'm trying to remember but maybe someone else here can answer. Will the windows event viewer log overheating or just log a loss of power from the unexpected shutdown? If not get a program that can monitor temperatures.

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I don't think so, and google seems to back me up on this. First result says overheating shutdowns occur too quickly and are detected at too low a level (I believe by the CPU hardware itself) to give windows time to log them.

There is however a wide variety of monitoring software that should be able to tell OP if his machine is overheating. I'd also suggest that OP could grab a benchmarking program like prime95 and see if running it causes his computer to shutdown. A synthetic benchmark should put the CPU under much more load, and so if the shutdown is actually caused by heat it would crash reliably under such a program.

Standard warning here: Don't break your PC, high CPU temperatures can damage hardware even in spite of thermal throttling and emergency shutdowns. Maybe try running a lighter load and monitoring what the CPU does before going straight to torture tests.

Edit: A quick google with OP's laptop model number plus thermal throttling suggests that bad thermal performance is a known issue with this model. I would still suggest confirming it before trying out any fixes.

Is it only with Stelaris, and have you noticed any other strange behaviour at all?

Fixes are problematic with laptops and as others have said Stelaris is a good stress test.

Without intending to scare, I had a series of shut downs on my old rig build last year, and a few graphics bugs randomly crept into various games...then my PSU blew and took down the mobo and graphics card. Made me very aware that "I can live with this" is not a good computer management strategy...

I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments; you guys are awesome.

Here is what i go back to: This never happened for a month, now it is happening after 10 minutes of running the game, consistently... Makes me think something has to have changed...

Ok, a simple but sure way to find out if it isthe current patch is to try running it again in an older patch.

Here is how to do so.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...evert-stellaris-to-a-previous-version.954474/

that happens. Another thing is to download something that will stress your system like prime95 for cpu and something like furmark for gpu. That way you can isolate where its going wrong and make better more focused inquiries.

As to driver issue .... yey computers. The only real solutions is a 10lbs sledgehammer

As others mentioned, the problem is almost 100% for sure your hardware, and very likely related to heat - the most probable candidates being your CPU, GPU, or PSU.

You mentioned you installed a new thermal management driver and that seems to have improved the situation - something to consider is that what it may be doing is being more pro-active about downclocking your CPU or making fans run full time. Since you said this happened quite suddenly, and the hardware is new, I would suggest you have the machine looked it - this easily could be a broken or failing fan or a failing PSU, or something like that which will only get worse over time.

NickMart said:

I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments; you guys are awesome.

Here is what i go back to: This never happened for a month, now it is happening after 10 minutes of running the game, consistently... Makes me think something has to have changed...

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Something could have changed that might be showing a hardware flaw that already existed. If the computer is that new, maybe someone can look at it under warranty.