Nitro AN515-51 shuts down when under heavy cpu and gpu load at "medium" temperature

Hi

My Computer shuts down when running games with "high graphics" (only takes a few minutes, when connected to the power supply). It just goes blank/off, no warning or shutdown procedure. Then, when I start it up again, the keyboard and power light turns on and off 3 times (Light on for ca15-20sec then off for 3sec) before it turns on again and the acer logo appears. This behavior is the same even if I wait until the next they before I start it up again. Is that start up behavior indication of anything? I have had argus hwmonitor running in the background and the GPU / and CPU temperature was only 70°C when it shut down the last time (and it was coming down from 80°C). I have only been watching the temperature manually, so there is a possibility that there is a spike that I am not seeing. The fault/shutdown takes longer time when running on batteries. But so does the temperature rise.

I have been wondering if it could be the internal power supply/dc converter that does not supply enough effect?

CPU i7-7700HQ
GPU GTX 1050

Accepted answers

DiBlix

They ended up replacing the motherboard.. No faults after

All comments

Red-Sand

Are you undervolting? 😉

DiBlix

Red-Sand said:

Are you undervolting? 😉

No, everything is at default.

Red-Sand

Does your laptop have the pinhole reset on the bottom? If so try pressing it and holding for 30 solid seconds (while laptop is unplugged and turned off) and see if that works.

If it doesn't then try reinstalling the drivers for your model from Acer's driver download page.

Acer makes their own hardware so the latest drivers don't work best. (Custom drivers for custom hardware)

DiBlix

Red-Sand said:

Does your laptop have the pinhole reset on the bottom? If so try pressing it and holding for 30 solid seconds (while laptop is unplugged and turned off) and see if that works.

If it doesn't then try reinstalling the drivers for your model from Acer's driver download page.

Acer makes their own hardware so the latest drivers don't work best. (Custom drivers for custom hardware)

I have tried that with 10 sec and then waited for 5 minutes before I reconnected the power supply and started it up again. I have also tried running it with the battery disconnected. There was no change.

I will try both the 30 sec reset and download the chipset + gpu drivers that I find on the acer download page

Red-Sand

Is your BIOs up to date?

DiBlix

Red-Sand said:

Is your BIOs up to date?

V1.19
it came with 1.13

Red-Sand

Any error logs to show?
Unfortunately it seems like sending to Acer to check out might be the best bet or a factory redet to see if it corrects.

DiBlix

Red-Sand said:

Any error logs to show?
Unfortunately it seems like sending to Acer to check out might be the best bet or a factory redet to see if it corrects.

There is no BSOD logs (and I have turned off automatic restart). I will have a look into event viewer after the next fail (so I now what time it fails, less searching that way). The Battery reset didn't help. I have just downloaded all the drivers, that was available on acer download. will post after all is installed and tested.

I did the acer OS factory reset yesterday. I will also have a look into the BIOS and see if there is any defaults too chose from there. But it's looking bleak..

DiBlix

There was nothing useful in the event viewer and the computer still dies after using the acer drivers (Sata, chipset, IO, Turbo boost, intel VGA, Nvidia VGA)

DiBlix

I have also tried locking the CPU at 60% 1600MHz and set the GPU in maximum power saver (GPU was at 94% load instead of 99%).
The result is that the CPU and GPU temperature is stable at ca 60-65°C. But the Shutdown (instant off) still happens within ca 2 minutes of starting a "heavy load" game. Games like Portal 2 and such, lasts "forever" (GPU ca 30-35%).

Red-Sand

Did you try defaulting the entire BIOs yet (F9)?

If a factory reset plus defaulting the BIOs doesn't work, then that only leaves a possible hardware issue.

You could run a few preliminary tests such as a S.MA.R.T test (For HDD) and if you have dual sticks of RAM to try to remove one and test each individually or swapping slots it/they are installed to.

You could also unplug the CMOS battery to to a complete reset of the BIOs.

Although at this point it being a physical issue it would be best if still under warranty to just have Acer check it out.

DiBlix

Yes, i defaulted the BIOS as well.
Only one 8GbRam..

I agreed that I should probably just deliver the computer back to the store.
I suspect that this is a power issue, so I'm considering down clocking the GPU and see if that helps. But that is not a solution on a computer that is less than a week old. It is just to see if it helps if the GPU draws less power.