u/Egathentale

Long story short, I had irregular system crashes for several weeks now, where the system would lock up and could only be restarted by unplugging the PC. I tried everything on the software side, got a new PSU, and even replaced my aging OS SSD, but no cigar.

Then, while looking for diagnostic tools, one of the sources in those stupid AI summaries caught my eye. I followed it to a Reddit post, and as it turns out, someone else was experiencing the same kind of crashes, and they had the exact same mobo. I PMd them, and lo and behold, it was the motherboard after all.

So, I started looking for replacement. Currently I have an Asrock B450 Pro (it's the oldest part of the setup, go figure), an R7 5700x, and an RX 7800XT in my machine. I'm gaming at 1080p, 144hz, and I don't want to upgrade anything else (especially after already blowing the equivalent of over 200 bucks on superfluous parts), so I want to stick to an AM4 platform.

Right now, I'm eyeing an MSI B550-A Pro for $120 with shipping, but I'm hesitating a bit. I mean, if I'm going to upgrade my CPU at any point in the future, I would have to move on to the AM5 socket platform, meaning I'd have to replace the mobo again, so I'm wondering if I should just get a cheapo board that still fits my needs (ATX, 4 DIMMs, 2 M.2 slots), since I'd only use if for a few more years.

Any thoughts on this?

Long story short, my 6-years old PC is having some weird crashing issues, where the system seemingly goes into standby mode and doesn't react to either the power or reset buttons, and the PSU has to be manually turned off for a restart. I've eliminated pretty much any possible software source (short of a full Windows reinstall), so I'm afraid either my PSU or my Mobo is dying.

My money's on the PSU, because honestly, this is a bit of a "ship of theseus" situation here, where I replaced the CPU, the RAM, the M.2 SSDs, and the GPU (three times) since I originally put the system together, more or less doubling the original power draw, and as it turns out, the 700w FSP Hyper K power supply the PC tech who originally assembled the case recommended isn't exactly super-reliable.

So, I'm planning to switch that out and see if things improve, so I spent half the afternoon researching locally available PSUs, and I narrowed it down to the following:

• Deepcool Gamerstorm PQ750G 750W - The cheapest one on the market, a little under the equivalent of $100 with shipping. Not particularly outstanding, but I haven't seen any big complaints about it.

• ASUS Prime 750W 80 PLUS Gold - A bit pricier, at around $110-120 with shipping, but seems to be a good all-rounder.

• Thermaltake Toughpower GT 750W 80 PLUS Gold - Same deal as the ASUS one, and roughly in the same price category.

• Corsair RM750e 2025 750W - This one I've seen actively recommended, but it's in the $145-150 range, which makes it a bit iffy.

I would appreciate any second opinion on these.