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[PyroDesu]

That sounds like overheating to me. I don't know that much about this, though.

Said he didn't hear any abnormal fan noise, it died quietly. If it were overheating, I'd expect the fans to go nuts before it went out (then again, I've had fans go nuts when there wasn't enough power in a PC, so...).

[Thief^]

Unless a fan is faulty? Specifically, the CPU or motherboard chipset fan (if it has one).

[PyroDesu]

Unless a fan is faulty? Specifically, the CPU or motherboard chipset fan (if it has one).

To his knowledge, they were operating normally.

[Thief^]

Does the PSU contain a fan? Is that working? Does the computer turn off faster after it's gone off once? That would definitely suggest something overheating. If it's totally random it would suggest something else, and PSU is a good guess for the kind of failure (to my knowledge, anything else would leave the power on (blue screen crash or black screen freeze)).

[PyroDesu]

Does the PSU contain a fan? Is that working? Does the computer turn off faster after it's gone off once? That would definitely suggest something overheating.

Yes, probably (again, he said he didn't notice anything wrong, and a bad fan would have a sound change), no idea but it did go off faster with a heavier load, though it failed even if he used it lightly for a while.

It's hard to troubleshoot when all I have is his recollection.

[Thief^]

It does sound like a PSU fault is a possibility.

[Sensei]

You definitely need to go in there and look at the fans. Maybe bring a spare power supply to test with, if you can find one.

[gimlet]

Run one of those little apps that shows the CPU temperature - like coretemp or speedfan.  It's the easiest and cheapest first step to take, since you can do it for free in a few minutes.  Well worth a few minutes to rule out something simple like a loose CPU heasink or failing fan...

When it dies, does it give the blue error screen or just go black?

[PyroDesu]

Run one of those little apps that shows the CPU temperature - like coretemp or speedfan.  It's the easiest and cheapest first step to take, since you can do it for free in a few minutes.  Well worth a few minutes to rule out something simple like a loose CPU heasink or failing fan...

When it dies, does it give the blue error screen or just go black?

Just went black, as far as I know.

And he's not big on the idea of powering it on at all. He's afraid it'll end up frying something important. I'd try testing with a known good PSU, but said PSU is in use already.

[Sensei]

Run one of those little apps that shows the CPU temperature - like coretemp or speedfan.  It's the easiest and cheapest first step to take, since you can do it for free in a few minutes.  Well worth a few minutes to rule out something simple like a loose CPU heasink or failing fan...

When it dies, does it give the blue error screen or just go black?

Just went black, as far as I know.

And he's not big on the idea of powering it on at all. He's afraid it'll end up frying something important. I'd try testing with a known good PSU, but said PSU is in use already.

Well, starting it up is probably the easiest thing to do. Failing that you'll have get a multimeter and check all the pins on the PSU. I would say though, if you didn't fry it already, you're not too likely to fry it by running it once or twice more.

[Lord Shonus]

My heat sink is choked with dust, and I don't have 10 bucks for a couple cans of air. I do have an air compressor, is there any truth to the tales of these damaging your system?

[MaximumZero]

Yeah, actually, but mostly due to overpressurizing and knocking shit off the motherboard. If you can run about 5 psi out of your compressor, go for it.

[Sensei]

Depending on the shape of your heatsink, physically cleaning it with a toothbrush or pipe cleaner or whatever else is handy might work too.

[PyroDesu]

Its seems PSU was the right answer - we installed the new PSU (EVGA 500B) he had me order in for him and it's not died once since.

Wonder what I can do with the old, possibly bad one (which turned out not to be what I thought it was - I thought it was a Thermaltake TR-2, turns out to be an Ultra LSP).

[Astral]

!!!Fun!!!:

My computer decided to crap out during the middle of a bit of post-work Battlefield 4, giving the dreaded black screen of death, something I haven't experienced since prior to reformatting around 6 months ago. It was working fine, until the FPS dipped to about 1, then I lost everything and couldn't even Ctrl+Alt+Del my way out.

Restarting brings me to the default Windows "Welcome" screen, which displays a bit of text for a split second then freezes, with the cursor still controllable. It does not progress past this blue screen, simply displaying the Windows 7 Professional logo at the bottom.

I am able to boot into safe mode, and even with Networking, so that's a small measure of comfort.

Heat does not appear to be an issue. The computer is dusted and cleaned on a semi-monthly basis, mainly due to the presence of a cat that frequents the room.The CPU is a water cooled i7, and ASUS' BIOS utility didn't reveal any heat issues upon restart. The only major change to the system was upgrading from a pair of nVidia GTX 560s to a single 970. The PSU is a sturdy 850 watt unit, and I am well under that number for power usage for my computer. Power surge should similarly be out of the question, as I have it hooked up to a decent UPS, and no other devices in my house were affected.

I've unplugged all non-essential peripherals to no effect.

I believe the error to be with nVidia's graphics drivers, so I'm attempting a clean install of a previous version. System Restore got stuck at the Initializing stage for 10 minutes, and as such appears to be useless.

Any additional advice or ideas towards fixing this issue would be appreciated.

Edit: I'm able to boot normally now, though it takes about a minute, which is about a minute longer than it used to take as my system drive is an SSD. I'm running some diagnostics to see what might have caused it in the meantime.