So, lately I have had trouble with my display driver and PC crashing. When the PC crashes, it is not a BSOD, rather, total power loss. This only happens while running games/stress tests. I did some tests to try to isolate the problem.

Methodology: OCCT PSU Burn Mode 30min stress test

After running this test for 29 minutes, my display driver crashed. Looking at the results, the FPS dropped from the average, 300, to less than 4 on three occasions, and dropped to 0 when the display driver crashed. Next, I took the PSU out of my system and took a multi meter to it. All the voltage readings are well within the normal range.

After those tests, I put a spare Corsair CX500 in my system and ran the OCCT stress test again. This time, I ran the test twice for 30 minutes each time, with a 1-minute break in between tests: the display driver didn’t crash, and the FPS never dropped below 280 during these tests.

I’m thinking that my display driver could be crashing, and FPS dropping, because my PSU stops supplying enough power to my GPU for a split second. Unfortunately, I can’t devise a way to fully confirm this.

Do you think it’s safe to assume that the PSU is to blame, or should I test something else before replacing it? I already tested my memory and, of course, updated my display drivers.

Full specs:

Corsair HX750 PSU (It is about 6 years old; seen ~3 years of use based on HDD S.M.A.R.T. data)

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz

8GB DDR3

GTX 970 (Gigabyte windforce)

1 SSD with 2 HDDs

MSI Z97 Gaming 5 mobo

The entire system pulls an observed maximum of 360W from the wall.

If the system is fully powering off under load and not doing this with the CX500, I think it's safe to assume the HX750 is bad. If you happen to have the proof of purchase somewhere, it may still be under warranty. Those things are covered for 7 years.

I was going to say maybe try a different driver version, because nvidia often fucks stuff up, happened to me once, not long after a driver update nvlddmkm started crashing like crazy, made me think it was the PSU, I bought a new one, and in the end it was just bad drivers -_-

But given you done some quite in depth testing and it just doesn't happen with your spare PSU I think it's safe to say the HX750 is to blame, you could try testing it again with some older drivers which you remember were stable for you though, just to be sure.

Oh and to be extra sure use DDU to have a completely clean driver install in case you don't already.

Another thing to check is your RAM timing. I had a motherboard that set the timing wrong when using the auto-detect settings, and my display driver crashed all the time because of it. Once I set the timing manually the problem went away.

My system never just shut down though, it just crashed to desktop. It might be worth checking anyway.

Thanks for all the help everyone. My PC has only fully crashed one time, so I may be jumping to conclusions. The display driver issues have spanned four driver versions (and I only update these if I run into problems); granted, I have not tried using DDU to remove them, so I guess I can’t rule this out. Everything else like temperatures, frequencies/timings are all looking good, and I have no overclocks right now.

As for the warranty: I was under the impression that participating in a mail-in rebate, like I did, would void the warranty. If worst comes to worst, though, I guess it’s worth asking Corsair if I can still make a warranty claim.

I think I will run the CX500 for a while and see if the problems are truly gone, or just obfuscated. If the problems don’t return, then I will put the HX750 back in and test again. At that point, things should become clearer.

Why would it? I have never heard of anything like that before.

Damn it I saw PSU and I thought it was about Phantasy Star Universe

I hate to say this man but a nvlddmkm issue seems to be a catch all for alot of issues if you happen to be using a Nvidia card. I got it for having bad or overheating memory modules on my cards. I got it when drivers hang. It can be a number of things.