Unity Editor with blank project repeatedly instantly shuts down PC. How is this even possible?!?

Unity Engine
1

The moment the Unity Editor 2023.1.20f1 is open, even if not in use, minimized and with a blank project, my PC will randomly loose power instantly and restart happening regularly within roughly 2-3 hours.

CPU: 3950x
GPU: 6800xt
RAM: 95GB

I use this PC for gaming, 3D rendering, stable diffusion, llama3, video editing, image editing.
Absolutely stable in any other task no matter if running full load or just idling.

I don’t even know how to start figuring out what could be wrong since no crash reports are being produced and also the event viewer shows nothing before the shutdown. What on earth is Unity doing that can crash a PC in this way?!?

I pay for Unity Pro and in the current state it’s unusable. To be honest: I’m having regrets using Unity.

2

Those other tasks are not comparable. It‘s not unusual for a system instability to surface only or mostly with a particular task or application.

If you experience this kind of sudden, no notice crashes it‘s almost certainly a system instability.

Try running the burn-in tests of Furmark and Prime95 simultaneously. This maxes out your CPU, GPU and RAM and generates the most heat. If your machine can go through this churn for 2+ hours you can reasonably call it stable. If it can‘t (without crashing OR errors shown), it‘s not a stable system. In that case I can give you more tips how to analyze this.

You could first try checking if you have the latest drivers installed, particularly graphics. Sometimes they too have crash bugs under specific conditions. Also check the system devices control panel, if you have many yellow exclamation marks it means you may be missing chipset drivers which can also lead to stability issues.

3

check Windows event manager also, it might contain extra info,
and unity editor.log Unity - Manual: Log files

Can try installing newer unity version, and keep that running.

There’s been few cases (years ago though) where hdrp caused bluescreen crashes, are you on birp/urp/hdrp?

1 Like
4

All drivers had been already up-to-date, but I checked even chipset and everything else from the motherboard manufacturers website. Nothing to update. With “System Devices Control Panel” I assume you mean device manager?
It’s now about 2h 30min with Prime95 and Furmark. So far no problems, only my room now feels like I’m sitting in an oven.

5

I use the default render pipeline (as in it says none).

Btw: the crash is not a bluescreen. It’s like if I would plug the power cord. Instantly off then instantly restarts.

The last line in the editor logs is:

##utp:{“type”:“MemoryLeaks”,“version”:2,“phase”:“Immediate”,“time”:1714542804263,“processId”:5472,“allocatedMemory”:28178461,“memoryLabels”:[{“Default”:10365},{“Permanent”:15300},{“NewDelete”:77468},{“Thread”:4228872},{“Manager”:37458},{“VertexData”:8},{“Geometry”:560},{“Texture”:2200},{“Shader”:77625},{“Material”:24},{“GfxDevice”:55360},{“Animation”:328},{“Audio”:3944},{“FontEngine”:224},{“Physics”:417},{“Serialization”:776},{“Input”:14824},{“JobScheduler”:224},{“Mono”:32},{“ScriptingNativeRuntime”:7920488},{“BaseObject”:1619312},{“Resource”:1240},{“Renderer”:2344},{“Transform”:16},{“File”:35904},{“WebCam”:80},{“Culling”:32},{“Terrain”:953},{“Wind”:24},{“STL”:40},{“String”:12593},{“DynamicArray”:72996},{“HashMap”:96919},{“Utility”:2670219},{“Curl”:1408},{“PoolAlloc”:1672},{“AI”:40},{“TypeTree”:173197},{“ScriptManager”:512},{“RuntimeInitializeOnLoadManager”:64},{“SpriteAtlas”:112},{“GI”:7808},{“Director”:8240},{“CloudService”:296},{“WebRequest”:648},{“VR”:45937},{“SceneManager”:496},{“Video”:64},{“LazyScriptCache”:32},{“NativeArray”:8},{“Camera”:25},{“Secure”:1},{“SerializationCache”:1576},{“APIUpdating”:10320},{“Subsystems”:336},{“VirtualTexturing”:57888},{“StaticSafetyDebugInfo”:278528},{“Gui”:268216},{“EditorUtility”:119114},{“VersionControl”:4},{“Undo”:624},{“AssetDatabase”:10197775},{“RestService”:504},{“EditorGi”:328},{“License”:3544},{“UnityConnect”:24944},{“Collab”:545},{“Upm”:1536},{“DrivenProperties”:72},{“LocalIPC”:260},{“ProfilerEditor”:9698},{“CoreBusinessMetrics”:2856},{“AssetReference”:32},{“IPCStream”:32}]}

6

I’ve read about a bug with Nvidia hardware or firmware that did that because of unlimited FPS cap, maybe that’s what crashes the system. Also there’s threads online of 6800XT randomly doing what you experience because of the cap or faulty cables. Try using custom fps with your adapter.

Few years back there were another case of GPU bricks and failures because of unlimited FPS on New World by Amazon.

7

I closed the scene view and game view window so I only see the hierarchy and it still restarted my computer out of nowhere. Also shouldn’t the editor do nearly nothing if it’s minimized and nothing open, selected or running? The editor just chilling in the background is enough for the crash to appear.

Not sure how I can limit FPS for the editor itself.