# System Shut Down By ASUS Surge Protection when Gaming/3D Load



## GrumpyGamer123 (Oct 23, 2018)

After playing a 3D game (Snake Pass) for around an hour and a half I had my PC shut down completely and then power up again and the POST screen displayed the following:

“Power supply surges detected during the previous power on. ASUS Anti-Surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply unit!
Press F1 to run set up.”

Despite the reference to power surges, I don’t think there was any actual power surge in my electricity supply as nothing else connected to the same sockets (surge protected too) lost power or turned off.

I initially put it down to a one off but have had the problem return after gaming for a little over one hour again. After that I tried a heavy benchmark (3D Mark Firestrike Extreme) and this caused the system to shut down within minutes displaying the same message on boot up.

I have read up on the ASUS Anti-Surge a bit and had heard that it can be a little over sensitive but am wary of disabling it as I do not want to risk damaging my hardware if it is correct and the power supply really is unstable.

I have owned the power supply, a BeQuiet Pure Power 530 Watt (580 Watt Peak, 500ms, with 420 Watt over its dual 12v rails and a total of 35A) for around 4-5 years and never had any issue with it before. While 5 years may seem a lot, this is my second PC that I use as a HTPC in the living room solely for gaming, so has not seen a great deal of use over that time (I divide my gaming time between PC and consoles).

That said, to allow it to better handle modern games I did recently upgrade the graphics card to a Gigabyte G1 Gaming 980TI and am wondering if the card, being factory overclocked is proving too taxing for the PSU?

My system is a i7 3770, 16GB DDR3, GTX980TI, Windows 10, 360GB SSD, 2TB SSHD, 3TB HDD, BD ROM, BeQuiet Pure Power 530 Watt (580 Watt Peak, 500ms) with 420 Watt over its dual 12v rails and a total of 35A.  

Should I just change the PSU for something stronger? Or should I try disabling the ASUS surge protection and hope that the PSU’s own safeguards will be enough?


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## Bo$$ (Oct 23, 2018)

Get a new PSU


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## phill (Oct 23, 2018)

Firstly, welcome to TPU   It's a great place to be here! 

About the PSU you have installed, it should be enough, according to Guru3D their review of the 980 Ti they suggested a 600w unit, so 530w might be a little low ish, but it's the Amp rating that's important.  According to a quick Google, you'll be needing about the 40 amp's on the 12v rail..  Overtime that might reduce with any PSU, given that your's is 5 years old should be ok but I think the amps are a little low according to Nvidia's recommendations of 38A minimum (vs your 35A)

Have you another PSU you can swap it out for?  Is the system overclocked?  CPU I see is a non k so I'm guessing that's stock but the GPU, has that been overclocked at all?  There's quite a bit installed in the PC, it might be that what your running could be limiting the power and therefore making the GPU struggle for required power...

Personally I think a bigger PSU would help and obviously a newer unit as well would also be a big benefit if something is happening to the BeQuiet model you currently have.  Personally for a recommendation, a EGVA G3/G+ unit is a solid choice   I have 2 650w units, both brilliant and have been since day one.  They get used but they aren't pulling masses of power but are on a good 18 hours a day, sometimes 24


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## FreedomEclipse (Oct 23, 2018)

Get a new PSU. I would of Recommended an EVGA 650 GQ as they were $80 a few months back but the price has gone up to $100+ now. I would still recommend one anyway but at that price point is quite a bit of competition like the Seasonic SSR-650FX FOCUS Plus which is a great peice of kit

Basically anything around the $100-110 mark will be just fine... Avoid lower end CX or builder series Corsair units though. They tend to be a mixed bag. They have worked great for some people while for others such as myself have had to send back two faulty units concurrently one after the other because the replacement unit was also faulty.


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## Salty_sandwich (Oct 23, 2018)

Like Phil says Guru3d is a good place to get a good review and if they suggest 600watt (probs as min for amp's and overload) then it's a safe bet, although their forum has quite a few toxic members, i stopped using the place ages ago, but the website is worth a visit and good for reviews.

Im pushing my luck with a 320watt PSU and A10-5800k, 1050ti, 2 x HDD and the rest of it ..... probs will pop one day


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## Regeneration (Oct 24, 2018)

GTX 980 Ti requires 600W PSU.

You can try to disable ASUS Anti-Surge protection and see what happens. Probably a system lockup or BSOD.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Oct 24, 2018)

I have had Aisuite do this on older boards for no reason , is Aisuite all good now, i ask because I installed it but its not helping my oc i wouldn't say.
Does it hurt though?

Sos on phone✓edit


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 24, 2018)

BeQuiet are known for their CPU coolers but their psus tend to mediocre at best

Sometimes asus surge protection is a pain


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## OneMoar (Oct 24, 2018)

psu is >3 years old the caps or inductors are probably failing
replace the psu and thank asus for saving your hardware


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## Frick (Oct 24, 2018)

eidairaman1 said:


> BeQuiet are known for their CPU coolers but their psus tend to mediocre at best
> 
> Sometimes asus surge protection is a pain



Nah, they're pretty solid, most of them anyway.

In the past Asus Surge Protection had a tendency to be pretty over sensitive, I have no idea it that still is the case.


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## GrumpyGamer123 (Oct 24, 2018)

Thanks for all the replies. I was never expecting to get so many responses so quickly 

To answer the queries ive had, no the cpu is not overclocked (non k). The graphics card has just the standard manufacturers overclock it ships with, i have not attempted to push it further.

The consensus seems to be a new psu. However, as i mentioned this is my second system, i use with the tv for gaming/htpc stuff, i actually upgraded my main pc earlier in the year (the htpc actually 'inherited' the old parts). My main pc is a ryzen 1800x, 16gb ddr4, asrock ab350m, 250gb m.2 ssd, rx480 8gb and perhaps most crucially a corsair cx850m.

So i could probably get away with swapping the psus between the systems as the rx480 is hopefully less power hungry?

However another question, would i gain much performance from the 980ti by putting it in my new build (newer cpu, ram etc)?

If the 980ti is likely to do significantly better in the newer build then i would rather have that with the 980ti as the living room pc instead as that one is likely to see the most gaming.


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## Vayra86 (Oct 24, 2018)

GrumpyGamer123 said:


> Thanks for all the replies. I was never expecting to get so many responses so quickly
> 
> To answer the queries ive had, no the cpu is not overclocked (non k). The graphics card has just the standard manufacturers overclock it ships with, i have not attempted to push it further.
> 
> ...



Yes. Swap the 980ti and RX480 around and you will probably be more than fine.

Surge protection is known to give issues, I wouldn't toss out your PSU just yet and this is a nice way to keep using it, while pushing it a bit less. I'm not buying the 'Asus saved your hardware' statement to be honest. You could also try turning it off and then push the system in a similar way you did when it triggered. If you can reproduce a crash / instability, the PSU is ready to go. if not, keep surge protection off and game on.


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## kn00tcn (Oct 24, 2018)

980ti is more performance & uses more power, it should be seen in reviews, just check

shoot, but 1800x is probably kind of a lot more power than 3770...

it's not like the asus thing would be wrong if the psu is giving unstable power, but we need to confirm this, you have to look at the voltages in hwinfo on idle+load+long term load


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 24, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> Yes. Swap the 980ti and RX480 around and you will probably be more than fine.
> 
> Surge protection is known to give issues, I wouldn't toss out your PSU just yet and this is a nice way to keep using it, while pushing it a bit less. I'm not buying the 'Asus saved your hardware' statement to be honest. You could also try turning it off and then push the system in a similar way you did when it triggered. If you can reproduce a crash / instability, the PSU is ready to go. if not, keep surge protection off and game on.



The amount of systems that report this kind of problem even with Reputable Brands of PSU tell me this type of stuff is pointless. Better power strips with surge protection will save the whole machine and a good psu does that as well.

Turn that function off.


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