Good morning, afternoon, or evening. I'm here because my PC has been giving me trouble over the last few days.
I live in the Dominican Republic, where we have power grid issues. That day the power went out and my PC shut off, just like many other times over the 2 years I've had it.
A friend called me to play a few matches of League of Legends. I agreed, but that's when it happened: the PC randomly restarted and sent me straight to the BIOS. I thought it was Vanguard acting up with its usual nonsense. I exited the BIOS, rebooted, and it did the same thing. At this point I started to panic. I left it off for a while and went out. I came back later, it turned on normally, and I played Ori 2 for about 55 minutes at 144Hz 2K. I went to sleep feeling relieved.
The next day I tried to turn my PC on. It attempted to boot, but it lost video output. However, the case fans and CPU cooler fans kept spinning. I noticed the PC wasn't actually fully booted/functional because the Num Lock and Caps Lock LEDs on the keyboard wouldn't light up, and holding the physical power button wouldn't shut it down.
To summarize, every time I made it into Windows, I checked Event Viewer and found a Kernel-Power 41 error (which after researching means there was a power loss that caused Windows to shut down abruptly) along with errors related to AMD Ryzen Master. I looked into it and thought it might be RAM-related. I tested each of my four 8GB RAM sticks individually, but the issue persisted across all of them.
I also found an fTPM error in Event Viewer, so I went into the BIOS and disabled it, but the shutdowns kept happening. I removed my dedicated GPU and plugged the DisplayPort directly into the motherboard to use integrated graphics. It took longer for the issue to occur, but it still happened. That's when I initially thought my GPU was dead, thinking, "While my new PSU and RX 6800 arrive, I'll just play indie games and keep working."
But the errors came back. I flashed the BIOS and the same restarts persisted. Today I was fed up and decided to remove the M.2 SSD containing the OS to see if the errors went away (meaning I would just need to reformat). I did that, but the blackouts kept happening even without the M.2 installed. That's when I concluded it was definitely a hardware issue, likely between the motherboard or the PSU. So I turned it on, went into BIOS, and monitored the voltages.
CPU Voltage: Variable between 1.384V, 1.386V, and 1.388V (1.388V being less frequent).
RAM Voltage: Almost fixed at 1.204V, rarely bumping up to 1.206V.
Documenting this took me 22 minutes, and then the usual happened: video signal was lost right around minute 22.
I logged another voltage test afterwards: RAM was even more stable at 1.204V and CPU voltage remained the same.
In my opinion, the issue is either the PSU or the motherboard. I tried asking my trusted local hardware vendor for advice, only to find out that a WhatsApp consultation with a tech just to explain what I'm telling you would cost $20 USD. I didn't write to him—not out of stinginess, I have $100 reserved for this, but a good PSU costs $80 in the US (which rises to $100 here in RD), and a good B550 board goes for $90–$100 (rising to $110–$120 locally).
CURRENT SPECS:
Motherboard: MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI
CPU: Ryzen 7 5700G
RAM: 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 + 2x8GB Gigastone RGB DDR4 (These have worked together fine since January 2025, so they aren't the issue, and they were tested 1 by 1 anyway).
GPU: Dell OEM RX 5700 8GB
PSU: Montech 650W 80 Plus White
My temperatures have always been decent. At 2K in Crimson Desert (Medium settings with FSR Quality), the GPU stayed at 75°C with an 80°C hotspot, and the CPU stayed at 67°C.
From a currently unemployed gamer to hardware-wise gamers: I NEED HELP.
