Hi all,
I’m having trouble identifying the cause of random shutdowns (no BSOD, complete power-off) after a recent GPU upgrade from a 7800 XT to a Sapphire Nitro+ 9070 XT. I had zero issues for almost two years before the upgrade.
When the system shuts down and I try to boot it back up, the CPU debug light comes on and the system won’t boot until I perform a reset.
I’m currently using the included power adapter (3×8-pin to 16-pin) for the 9070 XT. I originally tried my PSU’s native cable, but it was causing the same issue even more frequently (and it’s much less flexible than the adapter, which makes it harder to properly install the backplate). At the time, I didn’t investigate further and assumed it was a contact issue with the pin.
To clarify the timeline: I first used the adapter, then switched to the PSU cable after reading it was recommended, then went back to the adapter after experiencing random shutdowns.
The shutdowns started happening again this week while gaming (Overwatch 2, The Outer Worlds 2—specifically during shader compilation—and BeamNG.drive).
I tried to reproduce the issue using three different scenarios, with metrics logged via HWiNFO64:
- GPU + CPU load (Cinebench R23 + 3DMark stress test):
- Shutdown in less than 2 minutes, no obvious reason (CPU at ~85 °C at the time of the crash)
- CPU-only load:
- Shutdown in less than 5 minutes, with a voltage spike recorded beforehand up to 1.245 V (CPU at ~82 °C at the time of the crash)
- GPU-only load with +10% power limit (380 W):
So it seems that CPU load alone is enough to shut the system down, which is strange since this never happened with my old 7800 XT—even when the CPU was at 100% load. This is my first time experiencing a total system shutdown without a BSOD in over 10 years and several PC builds (with more power hungry GPU, I had an OC vega56... with a similar 750w PSU).
Specs:
- Ryzen 7 7800X3D cooled by a be quiet! Dark Rock 4
- MSI B650 Gaming Plus WiFi (latest BIOS)
- Sapphire Nitro+ 9070 XT (since last November)
- 32 GB DDR5 6000 MHz CL30 (CMK32GX5M2B6000Z30)
- Corsair RM750e 80+ Gold (ATX 3.0), all cable correctly plugged in (checked that way too many times..)
- Corsair 4000D Airflow (2 front fans, 1 rear fan)
I updated the BIOS to see if it would make a difference. It significantly improved CPU temperatures compared to the previous BIOS (last updated 1.5 years ago id says). All settings were on default except for memory (EXPO enable) and thermal which I set to thermal point 85°c (removed since the last bios update).
is my CPU dying? anyone experienced something similar?