PC randomly shuts down

[eudopia]

hi all - new user here.

i'm trying out Reason and have an issue where my PC will completely and suddenly shut down for no apparent reason. it has only happened a handful of times over the last couple of weeks.

i'm new to music production and DAWs in general so have no prior experience. PC specs are:

i7 980x CPU
GTX 1070 GPU
24gb RAM
W7

i'm using the onboard sound from an Asus p6x58d-e MB and this morning i experienced a shutdown with no MIDI controllers or any other inputs attached, so it was purely Reason using the computer keys to play sounds. the rack only had a few instruments in it and i was playing a single instrument at the time of the shutdown so CPU usage was very low.

is there anywhere in particular i should be looking to solve this issue?

[xboix]

My first thought is overheating.
Actually, that's my only thought!

[Loque]

My first thought is overheating.
Actually, that's my only thought!

That would make sense. I once did not had enough silver paste on the CPU...

[miyaru]

Open up your pc, detach the cpu cooler, losen your cpu, clean your cpu and contact surface of your cooler and apply new cooling paste.

Then re-assemble your cpu and cooler - that should do the trick........

[ThatKevinHanleyGuy]

Heat is a good guess, and I’ve also had this happen when a power supply was about to go bad. Even though CPU usage was low, playback in Reason is naturally going to increase the load on the PC, both heat and power.

Could also be a bad stick of RAM which is harder to diagnose.

[eudopia]

thanks for the replies but it's definitely not overheating. i appreciate my PC is getting on a bit now but it's barely breaking sweat when used with DAWs (at least for my use) and i have CoreTemp on at all times which confirms temps never go above 40 degrees when using Reason.

i use the same pc for other intensive tasks such as rendering where long stints with both CPU and GPU under full load for hours are nothing new.

and like i said i was only playing one instrument at the time...

any other suggestions?

[Loque]

As long as we talk about shutdown and not a reboot, i only know that the CPU is the cause of that. Maybe you have software running, which controls the temperature and the settings are wrong. It maybe, that you have similar software for your gfx board running, probably wrong settings too.

[RealReasonHead]

What does "shutting down" mean exactly? Shutting down like it would when you pressed "Shut down"? Or as in "as if the power went out"-shutdown?

[bitley]

The first thing to do is to simply power it up and leave it running without doing anything at all. Leave it overnight for instance, and make sure no power saving modes are on at all (yes you can of course turn the monitor off).

Step two is to go through each and every background software installation.

Windows update must be done and passed.

After this you can start thinking about hardware causing it.

For Reason work, this is the relentless tip I have been going on about for 20 years. You need an asio driver and if you do not have (a good) one you can try using Asio 4 All. Running Reason on a PC without specific (or even proper) audio settings will definitely create a buffer overrun thus forcing a restart.

[eudopia]

thanks again for the help.

What does "shutting down" mean exactly? Shutting down like it would when you pressed "Shut down"? Or as in "as if the power went out"-shutdown?

shut down as in power out. computer does reboot though after shutting down.

The first thing to do is to simply power it up and leave it running without doing anything at all. Leave it overnight for instance, and make sure no power saving modes are on at all (yes you can of course turn the monitor off).

+1

i'll leave on overnight and will report back.

[Loque]

Reboot could mean a defect hardware like RAM or gfx board. I would bet on RAM.

[eudopia]

Reboot could mean a defect hardware like RAM or gfx board. I would bet on RAM.

i removed (and put back in) a stick of RAM a week or so ago to check brand and type so i could add some more (haven't added it yet though). PC is showing the correct amount of RAM - 24GB - when booting.

so you're saying a random shutdown and reboot could be RAM related?

[Loque]

Reboot could mean a defect hardware like RAM or gfx board. I would bet on RAM.

i removed (and put back in) a stick of RAM a week or so ago to check brand and type so i could add some more (haven't added it yet though). PC is showing the correct amount of RAM - 24GB - when booting.

so you're saying a random shutdown and reboot could be RAM related?

Yea. If the RAM has different timing or is not from the same vendor and type, this can cause problems too. Remove everything to only one RAM, than test. If it crashes, try a different one. If it crashes again, search for a different cause. Good luck.

[RealReasonHead]

RAM could be an issue but it is typically accompanied by a BSOD. RAM is a bit tricky, though, as far as I know. When overclocking you need to check its stability with really long tests (a few hours, if I'm not mistaken) to make sure you've stressed it in all areas. Reason could be just hitting it the wrong way. If you have an XMP enabled, try disabling it and check if it still works.

Also, 24 GB? 3x8? Maybe Reason has an issue with 3 RAM sticks? Dunno, poking around in the dark a bit here.

[fullforce]

RAM could be an issue but it is typically accompanied by a BSOD. RAM is a bit tricky, though, as far as I know.

This.

It's not that hard. Just install some other OS on a stick and let it run for 24 hours, see if the same thing happens. If it does, it's probably a faulty motherboard or powersupply.

[fullforce]

shut down as in power out. computer does reboot though after shutting down.

So you get NO blue screen but it reboots by itself? And when it comes back on it doesn't say anything (on the bios screen) about a power surge or something?

[diminished]

Have you changed anything recently regarding the hardware?
Is you power supply delivering enough juice for your system?

[EnochLight]

thanks for the replies but it's definitely not overheating. i appreciate my PC is getting on a bit now but it's barely breaking sweat when used with DAWs (at least for my use) and i have CoreTemp on at all times which confirms temps never go above 40 degrees when using Reason.

i use the same pc for other intensive tasks such as rendering where long stints with both CPU and GPU under full load for hours are nothing new.

and like i said i was only playing one instrument at the time...

any other suggestions?

I'm guessing that's 40 celsius? Your CPU does not have any thermal monitoring tech, according to its spec page:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... l-qpi.html

Thermal Monitoring Technologies protect the processor package and the system from thermal failure through several thermal management features. An on-die Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) detects the core's temperature, and the thermal management features reduce package power consumption and thereby temperature when required in order to remain within normal operating limits.

So it very well could be temperature spikes causing instability (and your system to shut down). That said, your CPU's TCASE is 67.9°C.

Also, make sure Hyperthreading is turned off in Reason for your CPU. While your CPU is 9 years old and bit slower than my old 3770K (actually, quite a bit slower in single threaded), you should still be able to run Reason 11 on it easily.

Your issues sounds like possible hardware failure, but are you sure you don't have some wonky software installed that's causing some instability?

[pushedbutton]

my friend has a pc that did this. after extensive research we concluded that it was fucked.

[bitley]

Hehe. They can be, temporarily, but I have never had a computer problem I couldn't fix.

[RealReasonHead]

So it very well could be temperature spikes causing instability (and your system to shut down). That said, your CPU's TCASE is 67.9°C.

Wouldn't the CPU just clock down in that case? That should reflect in the clock speeds.

[EnochLight]

Wouldn't the CPU just clock down in that case? That should reflect in the clock speeds.

No clue. I think most of us are just grasping at straws here, really. It's possible it's a software issue somewhere, as the OP claims he has no other issues running any other software, even with his CPU/GPU maxed out doing rendering. Just strange that Reason seems to be his trigger when it's allegedly not maxing out his CPU/GPU.

[chimp_spanner]

There’s nothing specific about reason that would cause this to happen, so it’s likely to be some kind of interaction between something unique in your system (either hardware or software). Have you tried looking in the event log? Whenever I e had situations like this I can usually track it down using system event logs. Maybe see if there’s a process or service that’s failing at or shortly before the time of the shutdown.

Beyond that I’d say your best bet is to just back up and do a windows Restore so you can remove any software or OS configuration/corruption that could be at fault.

If it still happens after that, possibly hardware. You could maybe test this by removing all non essential peripherals and also making sure that all your core components have the correct and most recent drivers installed.

[Loque]

Out of topic... Running odd number of RAM sticks can slow down your system. But your CPU is so old, it probably doesn't have a burst mode anyway.

[Boombastix]

Graphics drivers can do this (update or roll-back), sudden CPU temp spike (new paste), or bad connection to RAM (clean with eraser), bad PSU (nightmare to fix unless you understand PSU and soldering).