Computer randomly shutting down

In 2020 I purchased a gaming PC from IBuyPower and since then I haven’t had any issues at all. A few weeks ago however, my computer has started to randomly shut itself down while performing random tasks. It does it at weird times which is the part I’m confused by. I play a lot of league of legends and the PC has no issue whatsoever while playing, I could play all day long and it’s fine. But whenever I try playing virtually any other game, I can play for a random amount of time (usually not very long) before the PC just turns off. I should note there is no “powering off” screen it just goes straight to black and everything turns off simultaneously. I thought it could be an error with my Steam download as most my games are played there but I’ve even had Minecraft trigger the shutdown specifically right after I clicked the graphics quality button. It’s also shutdown while just scrolling through steam and not even playing anything. My only theory is that whenever the GPU or CPU starts to take upon a higher weight load, something can’t handle it. League of legends isn’t very demanding and runs fine but for instance the new “sons of the forest” game, is unplayable for me. I get just past the beginning cutscenes before it all goes black. I thought it was a faulty power supply so I bought a new one and installed it today but the issue still continues. I don’t think it’s an issue with dust as the computer is fairly clean. I also don’t think it’s overheating. I can turn the computer on after not using it for days and try to play something and it will immediately shutdown. I’ve tried contacting iBuyPower but have yet to hear anything. I’m not super knowledgeable of computers and how they work but I know the basics. Please help.

I should add these are my computer parts and specs:

Intel Core i7-9700KF CPU, ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4S-IB MB w/ WiFi, GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GPU, 16GB DDR4-3000MHz ADATA RAM, 500GB WD SSD + 1TB WD HDD, iBUYPOWER RGB Liquid Cooling​

Pyro said:

Let's get some more information:

Download and run the free version of speccy.

Once you have ran speccy, follow the instructions to upload a snapshot found here.


To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:


Please list your power supply unit

Click to expand...

the PSU is a ThermalTake smart 600W.

Bruce said:

g'day and welcome to the forum.

so it's a few years, first guess is it may be over heating, despite your thinking.
have you ever taken the cover off it and cleaned out the fans, heatsinks, and vents of any dust buildup?

Click to expand...

There is very minimal dust buildup

Pyro said:

Not a great PSU to go with a 20-series card, but we'll save that for a little later if we need to check it.

I'm with Bruce, overheating and inadequate power were my first thoughts.


This is my laundry list, it's a good starting point for troubleshooting and should get you an idea what's going on:


1. Try running the following programs, also try to keep at least 25-30% of your disks as free space.

Run Disk Cleanup (check all the boxes) this will delete things such as your recycling bin, so make sure you don't have any files you want to keep.

Run Defragment and Optimize Drives, run this on your drives.


2. Disable any overclocking or changes to power/performance settings

Undo any overclocking you may have done (if any)

Settings > System > Power and sleep > Additional power settings
Make sure your power plan is set to balanced, high performance/ultimate performance is only beneficial on gaming laptops where it needs that extra boost.


3. Check for Operating System Corruption

Right click on the Windows logo in the bottom left and select Windows Powershell (Admin)
Run these three commands separately:

sfc /scannow

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

These will take a while to run, do not close out of Powershell while they are running, if one fails then move onto the next and then loop back around.

Note: It doesn't hurt to make a system backup before you make all these changes, save any important files of folders. While these changes shouldn't cause any issues, better to be safe than sorry.


4. Unplug unnecessary devices.

If you have a gamepad, extra monitor, external hard drive/flash drive, or anything that is not essential to using the computer plugged in, unplug it.


Once you have completed all of these tasks, restart it (using the restart option in the power menu) and re-test.

Click to expand...

I will try to change the thermal paste and do everything else suggested as well. I should mention, for a while now my water cooler has been making a rapid ticking sound. After doing research I’ve come to the conclusion it’s most likely air bubbles. Could this affect the temperature of the CPU? If so how would I fix this? Online suggestions said to try tilting the computer in different directions to try to work the bubbles through but this has done nothing. I don’t have experience with water coolers so this is a gray area for me.

Thanks for all the replies guys I seriously appreciate it. So after running all the suggested tests and changes, restarting, and changing the thermal paste, my CPU’s idle temp is around 40 Celsius which is 5-10 lower than before. The only information I could gather regarding my water cooler is that it’s listed as: iBUYPOWER 120mm RGB Liquid Cooling System. I can’t find any other information on it other than that. I am providing a picture of the assembly so hopefully you can tell something from that.

A quick note, I launched the same game I’ve been trying to play for about 10 minutes and observed my temps. The computer never shutdown which is good but the average CPU temperature is around 90 Celsius. Everything else seems to be fine.

There is 1 fan at the front of the case. I’m not sure if this is the model number but this is the only thing I could find:

LC2BG204​

I was able to get ahold of the manufacturer and they are sending me a new CPU cooler to install which will hopefully fix the overheating issue.

They did not. I received a tracking number but it has yet to ship out.