Machine just shutoff and rebooted

[wan2fly99 38]

First time ever, Doing MSFS2020 using FBW A320.  Thin flying or tryin9 to  for about 50 mins

All of a sudden I hear a nice and machine just went black and started to reboot

 

Machine is about 1.5 years old using 1080 card

 

Anybody had this

[orchestra_nl 976]

A crash like this is almost always caused by failing hardware, unless there was a short glitch on your electricity grid. You could try to check the eventlog for clues although it is possible that Windows would not have had the chance to register the cause.

Most critical errors would cause a bluescreen. The fact that the machine suddenly rebooted instead of showing a bluescreen could mean that the powersupply has an issue or a major stability problem with your motherboard/CPU/RAM.

I would start by running a few stability "burn in" tests. There are several (free) programs that can do that for you. a memory test might be a good thing also.

[Ixoye 1,859]

It sounds like a problem with your power supply or a glitch on your electricity grid.

Edited January 9 by Ixoye

[JBDB-MD80 1,542]

^^^ sounds like a overheat check your cooling on the CPU.

Edited January 9 by JBDB-MD80

[RichieFly 750]

Have you dusted out the inside of computer and its power supply and video card? Sounds like it could be overheating.

[Bob Scott 7,782]

And don't forget to check the power cable, both at the wall and at the computer. 

Many years ago I had fits with a sudden flurry of uncommanded shutdowns, only to find I had a loose AC power connector after days of troubleshooting.

Sometimes, it's the simplest of things...

[cianpars 1,232]

Last time this happened to me it turned out to be a failing PSU.  The thing was getting mighty hot I might say.

[eslader 1,825]

1 hour ago, Bob Scott said:

only to find I had a loose AC power connector after days of troubleshooting.

That can be nasty, too. A few years ago my cat was screwing around behind the computer and pulled the power cord slightly loose. It was out just enough to cause sparking, which killed the power supply and the motherboard. Lucky me.

OP I concur with the others that heat could be a culprit. When's the last time you blew it out?

It's also possible that MSFS glitched. If it only happened the one time, I'd monitor temps for awhile (openhardwaremonitor is a good one because it's free, simple, and will log temps and other parameters every second) and make sure you aren't having thermal issues, then not worry about it unless it becomes a repeating pattern.

 

 

[MDFlier 2,031]

1 hour ago, Bob Scott said:

And don't forget to check the power cable, both at the wall and at the computer. 

Many years ago I had fits with a sudden flurry of uncommanded shutdowns, only to find I had a loose AC power connector after days of troubleshooting.

Sometimes, it's the simplest of things...

I once got bit by a similar situation. Cord was firmly plugged in on both ends but there was an internal break in it pretty close to the middle. It was a friend's computer, and I made 4 trips to her house trying to diagnose it. After an hour or so of finding nothing again, she offered me a beer. We sat on the couch for a bit. At some point, her little dog ran between the back of her desk and the wall, and the computer went down. It was a stoke of luck. Started playing with it and found a spot where I could make the computer loose power with a wiggle every time.

And to the OP... Check the event logs to see if anything got logged before it died. Ya never know. Logs are your friend.

Edited January 9 by MDFlier

[wan2fly99 38]

Good ideas, never dusted and never checked plugs  Will do   Thanks everybody

[JBDB-MD80 1,542]

1 hour ago, wan2fly99 said:

Good ideas, never dusted and never checked plugs  Will do   Thanks everybody

Take care of your hardware. That is important in Flight sim or other computer use completely.

[Flying-Hare 223]

What dust cleaning method do you use? Just wondering. I usually fail to properly clean my computer from dust.)

[JacquesBrel 646]

Open the case. Blow some compressed air everywhere. Don't use a vacuum cleaner - they can generate static electricity.

If you remove the graphics card to clean it, make absolutely sure no dust has got in the PCIe socket. Dust blocking some of the PCIe connectors can cause it to drop to a lower link width and decrease performance (happened to me once... but easily fixed by blowing the dust out of the socket).

[MDFlier 2,031]

9 hours ago, Flying-Hare said:

What dust cleaning method do you use? Just wondering. I usually fail to properly clean my computer from dust.)

I open it up,  sit it out back,  and use the blower side of my shop vac to blow it out. It takes 2 minutes, and it comes out perfectly clean.

Just keep the plastic nozzle at least 6 to 12 in away from the electronics so you don't zap anything with static electricity.

[ErichB 3,674]

I had this issue a while ago.  If you have an overclocked CPU, try lowering the overclock slightly.  This worked for me.

Edited January 10 by ErichB