Freezes and Shutdowns

[Farmrush]

I recently replaced my 8800GT with a 5770HD, and although I mention this, I'm not entirely sure that's the problem (I don't think it is...). Anyways, lately I've been having more lockups where everything just goes completely unresponsive, as well as a couple shut-offs--not shut-downs, the computer just completely turns off. I'm not seeing any other unusual behaviour. I'm wondering if this is my PSU biting the biscuit? Shut-offs and lockups seem to be completely random.

[Lpfan4ever]

If it's shutting off in a way like it would if you yanked the power cord out, then I'd personally guess PSU first. I don't think the 5770 takes much more power than the 8800 though. Posting your complete rig will help us figure out what may be wrong though.

[boggtrotter59]

Probably the psu... try blowing it out with compressed air. If there's crud in there or lot's of dust it can clog the fan causing it to overheat and shut down...

[Farmrush]

Phenom II X3 720 3.2Ghz
4GB DDR2-800 OCZ RAM
500W OCZ PSU
XFX 5770HD 1GB GPU O.C.
2 x 7200RPM HDD
Asus M4A78-Pro Motherboard

[KaptCrunch]

more Gigawatts the current PSU is under total load, test with 1 HDD and remove any USB device your not using see if works fine

[Takkyu]

The PSU is hitting it's max load and/or the load is going over. I had the same issue with my wife's pc. Upgrading to a 720watt from Gigabyte did the trick.

[Zero82z]

Please post the model of the PSU. However, unless it's defective, the PSU isn't the problem. 500W is plenty for your system, even if you're using a cheap OCZ PSU.

[geokilla]

Don't know if this can cause your problem to shut down like that, but did you completely remove the old NVIDIA drivers before you installed your ATI GPU?

Even if you have the OCZ StealthXStream 500W, you should be fine.

[Farmrush]

I plan on replacing the PSU with something a little more beefy and modular (I'd like to CF 5770s down the line). I went in and reseated the ram and secured all the power connections. I haven't had a lockup or shut-down yet, although they weren't too common to begin with. I should note that they would occur just as commonly as typing in notepad as they would after 5+ hours of gaming, so I'm not sure it's a matter of hitting the PSU's load. The 5770 actually uses less power than my old 8800GT from what I understand (at least on idle) and I never had this issue with the 8800GT. Yeah, I used.. uhh... some driver cleaner program to remove the Nvidia drivers. Sorry, I don't recall the name off the top of my head.

If it continues happening I'll replace it with a new PSU. I was looking at some 650W Corsair model.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, it is the 500W StealthXStream.

[Zero82z]

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a PSU issue at all.