I have a 3 year old Alienware computer with a GTX 580 and it has become wonky recently. I often use HDMI to project to my TV to watch videos or play games on the couch, but recently, sometimes the screen will go back, possibly make a electronic noise, and then restarts without even a BSOD. It boots up, and then if I don’t do safe mode is freezes at the “Starting Windows” screen. But THEN, sometimes, even frozen on “Starting Windows,” I can hear the startup music and I know its on the desktop, but I can’t see it.
The crashes usually occur while playing games, such as BF4 or LoL, but it has even crashed after clicking my internet browser to open, or even opening the Nvidia Control Panel. All crashes restart the computer sans BSOD. I have reinstalled drivers and reverted to earlier drivers but neither have helped. Computer temperature was around 43 C, so that’s not a problem.
Does this seem like something graphics card related?
What’s your CPU? And if you have integrated graphics, yank out your graphics card, plug into the intergrated graphics port, and see if it crashes. You can probably load a lot of games; you just can’t play them well, but that’s beside the point. You’re trying to ID your problem.
Computer temperature was around 43 C, so that’s not a problem.
Computer temp or GPU temp? I’d check your GPU temps as a first port of call - it’s responsible for 90% of graphics card related crashes in my experience. But the PSU suggestion is definitely a possibility.
You’re probably getting a BSOD but Windows is set to automatically restart after system failure. BlueScreenView is a handy tool to look at your BSOD’s. You can then research the STOP code and maybe find answers from that.
I recently cleaned out a friend’s Alienware machine (a little older than yours, but not much) and the inside was absolutely filthy. It’s amazing how much dust can accumulate over a few years. He also had a GTX580, so it may even have been the same machine as yours.
Had a similar problem a while back. Computer would randomly shut down, and most of the time would only be able to get it restarted in safe mode. If tried starting normally, most of the time it would just go to a black screen when starting windows. Problem was intermittent so was difficult to find out what was causing it. Cleaned the inside first, and reseated the components. Ran diagnostics on HD and RAM. Then got a PSU tester, and that was okay too. Problem was still occuring. Then I saw a video advising to clean dust from the RAM, and tried it out… and it’s been fine since. Might be worth a shot if you are cleaning it anyway.
And, really, you should be air-cleaning the innards regularly anyway, I do it once a month, and do a full-on disassemble-heatsinks-and-fans clean every year.
