Weird issue with gaming PC, thoughts?

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Feb 2nd, 2023 1:29 pm

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Feb 1st, 2023 10:07 am

game_fanatic [OP]: Deal Fanatic; Dec 17, 2007; 6311 posts; 2610 upvotes

Feb 1st, 2023 10:07 am

Weird issue with gaming PC, thoughts?

Sorry for the long post but this issue has perplexed me. I built a gaming PC back around Black Friday;
NZXT H1 v2
Gigabyte Auros Pro AX B550i
Ryzen 5700x
AMD 6750XT
16GB Team Group Ram
1TB WD SN770 SSD

It was working great for a couple months, then all of a sudden during a StarCraft session I lost picture (audio was still playing on my headphones). Figured StarCraft crashed, which has happened before, so I did a hard reset. When the PC booted up I didn't get any picture. Did your standard troubleshooting, different monitor, different cable, reseated RAM, removed and re-installed GPU, nothing. The fans on the case and GPU spun up, but no picture.

Took it to a repair shop, guy figured it was a short on the mobo (which would've been a real bummer since it was only piece I bought used). When I took it home I was actually able to get it to boot, but the GPU was not recognized at all. I tried updating the drivers but the PC crashed again before it could complete. Okay, so looks like I'm dealing with possibly a GPU issue. On a whim, I decided to unplug the 6-pin PCIe cable from the GPU and plug in an unused 6-pin PCIe, and voila! PC booted and has been running fine ever since.

What sort of issue am I looking at here? Could it be an issue with the PSU? That specific cable? Would love any insight!

12 replies

Feb 1st, 2023 12:22 pm

Canuck_TO: Deal Addict; Dec 11, 2008; 1553 posts; 946 upvotes; Toronto

Feb 1st, 2023 12:22 pm

What wattage is your power supply and what's the model number?

Feb 1st, 2023 12:40 pm

iamsiege: Deal Addict; Nov 18, 2017; 3026 posts; 2000 upvotes; Alberta

Feb 1st, 2023 12:40 pm

Likely a bad cable on your power supply or it's under powered or the PSU is bad but only causes issues intermittently, any gold+ 600W+ should be more than enough for that set up.

+2

Feb 1st, 2023 1:03 pm

game_fanatic [OP]: Deal Fanatic; Dec 17, 2007; 6311 posts; 2610 upvotes

Feb 1st, 2023 1:03 pm

Canuck_TO wrote: ↑ What wattage is your power supply and what's the model number?

The H1 v2 comes with a 750W Gold PSU, model PS-7G1B

Feb 1st, 2023 1:09 pm

kramer1: Deal Addict; Apr 29, 2018; 2314 posts; 1687 upvotes; Vancouver

Feb 1st, 2023 1:09 pm

This has to be the PSU or the GPU. What happens when you swap the cable back? Have you used a multimeter to test the 6 Pin power cables?

Can't Stop. Won't Stop. Game Stop

+1

Feb 1st, 2023 1:13 pm

intx: Deal Addict; Jan 23, 2003; 1011 posts; 251 upvotes; Mississauga

Feb 1st, 2023 1:13 pm

Doesn't look like a garbage psu, but my personal experience with NZXT is they value appearance over quality. So it wouldn't surprise me if one of the power cables it came with is faulty. High end nvidia cards ($1000+) have been having 'burnt connector' issues, and some are blaming the manufacturer, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Considering it is modular, you could just plug in the possibly 'faulty' power cable into the plug on the power supply where it's currently working. If it no longer works, you know it's the cable.

Alternatively you can use a multimeter to measure the resistance of the cable, it should be very low you can just keep measuring until you get a low reading if you don't know which wire ends where)

Last edited by intx on Feb 1st, 2023 4:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

+1

Feb 1st, 2023 1:44 pm

Canuck_TO: Deal Addict; Dec 11, 2008; 1553 posts; 946 upvotes; Toronto

Feb 1st, 2023 1:44 pm

game_fanatic wrote: ↑ The H1 v2 comes with a 750W Gold PSU, model PS-7G1B

iamsiege wrote: ↑ Likely a bad cable on your power supply or it's under powered or the PSU is bad but only causes issues intermittently, any gold+ 600W+ should be more than enough for that set up.

Have you overclocked the system and/or the video card through the Bios or the AMD drivers?
I'm with iamsiege. The issue appears to be related to your power connector or power supply.
If you had a PSU tester, you could check the power supply and see what power it's putting out.

Canada Computers used to sell units like this for under $20:
https://www.lifewire.com/test-a-power-s ... er-2626160

+1

Feb 1st, 2023 2:02 pm

game_fanatic [OP]: Deal Fanatic; Dec 17, 2007; 6311 posts; 2610 upvotes

Feb 1st, 2023 2:02 pm

kramer1 wrote: ↑This has to be the PSU or the GPU. What happens when you swap the cable back? Have you used a multimeter to test the 6 Pin power cables?

I've honestly been too afraid to swap back out, but is something I've been meaning to test out to see if it's truly the cable/PSU or it was something unrelated that simply resolved itself

intx wrote: ↑Doesn't look like a garbage psu, but my personal experience with NZXT is they value appearance over quality. So it wouldn't surprise me if one of the power cables it came with is faulty. High end nvidia cards ($1000+) have been having 'burnt connector' issues, and some are blaming the manufacturer, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Considering it modular, you could just plug in the possibly 'faulty' power cable into the plug on the power supply where it's currently working. If it no longer works, you know it's the cable.

Alternatively you can use a multimeter to measure the resistance of the cable, it should be very low (if you don't know the pin-out, you can just keep measuring until you get a low reading.

You're definitely right, on paper the PSU has great specs but I wouldn't consider NZXT a Tier S/A PSU manufacturer. I could try the multimeter route but looks a bit outside my depth

Canuck_TO wrote: ↑ Have you overclocked the system and/or the video card through the Bios or the AMD drivers?
I'm with iamsiege. The issue appears to be related to your power connector or power supply.
If you had a PSU tester, you could check the power supply and see what power it's putting out.

Canada Computers used to sell units like this for under $20:
https://www.lifewire.com/test-a-power-s ... er-2626160

I did have the 6750XT undervolted to 1175mv, so not a huge drop from stock (8% I believe). I was also worried this was causing stability issues but from what I read if the PC was crashing due to this reason it would simply reboot and reset the undervolt value back to stock. I'm going to leave it at stock for the foreseeable future, if it crashes again then at least I'll know the undervolt had no impact.

edit: corrected undervolt to 1175m

Last edited by game_fanatic on Feb 1st, 2023 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Feb 1st, 2023 2:26 pm

Canuck_TO: Deal Addict; Dec 11, 2008; 1553 posts; 946 upvotes; Toronto

Feb 1st, 2023 2:26 pm

game_fanatic wrote: ↑ I did have the 6750XT undervolted to 1150mv, so not a huge drop from stock (8% I believe). I was also worried this was causing stability issues but from what I read if the PC was crashing due to this reason it would simply reboot and reset the undervolt value back to stock. I'm going to leave it at stock for the foreseeable future, if it crashes again then at least I'll know the undervolt had no impact.

You'll possibly get black screens and possibly crash related popups but not always with the popups.
It took me a while of going through various drivers and settings on my AMD based system (CPU and GPU) to get it stable. Then again, I was pushing my CPU and undervolting the GPU.
It seemed that every driver update made the problem worse and in the end my final stable settings were nowhere near the same as what I started out with. Even though the performance was about the same.

Feb 1st, 2023 4:16 pm

umadbrah: Penalty Box; Nov 27, 2011; 5016 posts; 4512 upvotes; Calgary

Feb 1st, 2023 4:16 pm

Sounds like you already pinpointed the issue to the PCI-E power cable.

teksavvy sucks

Feb 2nd, 2023 6:26 am

M1K3Z0R: Deal Fanatic; May 11, 2009; 7760 posts; 4494 upvotes; Trudostan

Feb 2nd, 2023 6:26 am

Sounds like a GPU issue more than a PSU issue, per still having sound but no video.

PSU issues tend to manifest with system wide random reboots, shutdowns, and freezes. It's possible one of the 12v rails is flaking out, but hard to say for sure without proper voltage monitoring.

SAMSUNG SUCKS! NO SSD WARRANTY IN CANADA > https://forums.redflagdeals.com/has-any ... d-2098075/

Feb 2nd, 2023 1:21 pm

game_fanatic [OP]: Deal Fanatic; Dec 17, 2007; 6311 posts; 2610 upvotes

Feb 2nd, 2023 1:21 pm

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, really appreciate it! I will try swapping the cables again and see if I can re-create the issue. If I can, it's definitely a PSU/cable issue and I move from there. Cheers all!

+1

Feb 2nd, 2023 1:29 pm

warpdrive: Deal Expert; Mar 6, 2003; 18145 posts; 10979 upvotes; Ottawa

Feb 2nd, 2023 1:29 pm

good luck. Diagnosing these random problems can be tricky.

The first gen H1 had a good Seasonic PSU, but I'm not sure who makes the newer PSU.

Please update your profile to include your city. It's helpful when you post about something regional ucp.php?i=ucp_profile&mode=profile_info

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