Can a Game Crash a PSU?

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 06:46:43 AM

A few weeks ago my Son starts up Knights of the of the Old Republic and his Video loses signal.

I tried replacing the Card (he has an EVGA 460 GTX) with an old EVGA 9800 GTX, same thing right after Windows logo, screen goes dark.

I tried a different monitor.. same...

I went to Microcenter, bought him a new PSU, and its all better.. He's playing for two weeks.. Civ V, Grand Theft Auto V. CK2.. Various other First Person Shooters... not a hitch.. works great.

Last night he fires up Knights of the Old Republic (God knows why) and we are back to the same thing. Just seems really wacked to me.. how an old game could do something like this? I removed his drivers... With vga it stays up, looks beautiful (I didn't try to play anything). Reinstalled NVidia and down it goes again after Windows Loads. with Safe Mode or the drivers gone, stays up forever. I"m thinking PSU again, but wanted to be sure before I return it.. Just thought it was wacked that an 'old game' could do this. I was thinking today I try and remove everything from start up.

Jarhead0331 · July 16, 2015, 06:55:18 AM

Seems unlikely, but just out of curiosity, how many watts? Also, where did you get the game from? GOG? Steam? Original disc?

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 07:07:31 AM

Think before he had a 550W.. The one I just bought was 600W Cosair.

He said he got the game off the website of the game..What is it free now? I get my Star Wars games mixed up.

tgb · July 16, 2015, 08:42:47 AM

KOTOR is still being sold by Steam and GOG, so the odds that your boy got it for "free" from the official website are slim to none. Odds are he doesn't want to tell you where he really got it, but he probably picked up some malware or a virus along the way.

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 09:04:07 AM

No, he's a pretty honest kid he wouldn't 'lie' to me about it.. I just googled top link is Play Free Now

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 09:06:56 AM

Been Googling and it says something about Knights forcing hard code 60 Hz.. and that Windows registers as 59.. Thinking it tried to make a change to Windows.. gonna try a system restore..

Bison · July 16, 2015, 09:10:40 AM

Star Wars the old republic is free to play. Knights of the old republic is not. Two completely different games.
I'm going with malware.

Philippe · July 16, 2015, 09:18:59 AM

My introduction to power supply issues came in the early '90's when I bought my first computer, a cheap Korean collection of parts, most of which had to be upgraded. Back in those days you needed two sound cards, one for speech and one for orchestral music. It's been a while, but I remember that my orchestral sound card reproduced music beautifully because it was essentially a music synthesizer adapted into a sound card. Orchestral music from my computer sounded better than orchestral music from my sound system (vinyl, cd's, and tapes).

One night I was flying a bombing mission over the docks in Panama when I became aware that I was being tracked by an incoming surface to air missile. I took what I thought was the necessary evasive action, but couldn't outturn it. Then something really impressive happened. I heard nasty noises because my plane was crashing and burning. I saw fire and smoke in the cockpit. And I smelled smoke. That blew me away -- I had no idea that a computer simulation could be so realistic. The smoke continued and the fire spread from my cockpit to my computer. Something shorted out, my motherboard was fried, and the computer was a total loss. The cost of data recovery was comparable to the cost of a new computer, so I took my lumps and walked away.

Two sound cards, joystick, throttle, and rudder pedals all in use at the same time can use a lot of power. The next three or four times I bought a computer I went through the drill of making sure the electrical system was over-powered so that this would never happen again. Buying my last computer was a little scary because I couldn't get my hands on a clear accounting of how much was needed to power the parts, but I decided not to get too worked up over it because I had an extended warranty and everything that was being installed inside the computer was put there by the manufacturer (who's really just the assembler these days). If something breaks or burns out, I'll invoke my warranty and the manufacturer will probably give me an upgrade.

I'm not sure this really addresses the issue, but needing to replace a psu after a burn-out doesn't strike me as the worst thing that can happen.

The next point isn't really related, but falls under the rubric of "specific games can do weird things to your computer". I played LOTRO back in the early days before I gave up on online games. I remember that my video card suddenly started producing weird and extreme artifacts in-game, and then the problem (in slightly different form) spread to the graphic displays in other applications. I was under warranty and policies were different in those days, so when my video card was replaced it was upgraded to a really expensive model that I never would have shelled out for in the first place. But in the process of replacing the card I found out that the game had apparently been breaking one particular class of video card, and it wasn't just me -- lots of people had been having that particular problem. And that was when I learned to love warranties.

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 09:49:00 AM

I looked in Add Remove Programs.. it is Star Wars the Old Republic.. sorry my bad.. Trying a restore now.. I'm thinking maybe PSU is ok and it's just some how forcing Windows to a refresh that the Monitor can't take..

Like I said before when this happened I tried a different monitor and video card and it didn't resolve. After I got the new PSU all was well.. for two weeks of heavy gaming.. My Son plays a lot.. he hasn't played much this week because of Drivers Ed Classes but he's still on at night.. and then Poof when he started 'that' game.. same issue.. just like before..

Correction it's Star Wars the Old Republic as Bison stated.

Capn Darwin · July 16, 2015, 09:56:40 AM

There are some card, cpu conflicts out there that require a bios update (Nvidia 970 and Dell XPS7800 being one you can Google).

Good luck.

BanzaiCat · July 16, 2015, 10:51:32 AM

Yeah, KOTOR is ten bucks on Steam and probably similar on GOG. You're not getting it for free unless it's acquired from a site like Pirate Bay or something similar.

That said I have it on my PC, and it ran fine until I got to the final world. Started having issues with followers not following and other weird stuff. I think it was just in-game bugs though. No hardware issues that I recall.

GJK · July 16, 2015, 11:17:32 AM

If it's using a "no cd" crack for the program .exe, that could have some bad code that isn't playing nicely with the NVIDIA drivers. That would be my bet.

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 11:19:23 AM

No, I apologize can't get the word Knights' out of my head.. it's Star Wars the old republic that is Free... as Bison said..

Bison · July 16, 2015, 11:34:53 AM

Is it shutting the system off or just going to a blank screen? If it's a blank screen, I'd validate the SWTOR files. I've experienced SWTOR freezing (including black screen), but it was resolved validating my files.

Tuna · July 16, 2015, 11:51:01 AM

Basically the computer loses Video Feed after loading Windows.. Screen goes black.. PC is still on.. and functioning.. I can hit Windows Key and Tab twice and do a shut down..

I can boot in safe mode and it stays up fine.. it's been up for awhile doing disk check and restore now..

I removed the Video Drivers so it was on VGA and it stayed up fine as well.

But if I reinstall Drivers I used a 'cleaner' and downloaded the latest from EVGA.. It goes Black after loading Windows...

The first time this happened I tried a different Monitor and Video card and the same..