PCWorld contributor Will Smith loves him some Fortnite. (Don’t hate, it’s a stable on-line shooter!) But for the previous few months, his gaming PC has been crashing quickly after he departs for his mid-air bus cease. So Will took it in to the PCWorld labs to diagnose the difficulty and hopefully get it fastened. You can observe together with the method in our newest YouTube video.

Will’s a veteran of PC gaming, so he’s tried all the standard simple fixes — reinstalling the sport, reinstalling the drivers, turning off all his overclocking… no cube. So Will and Adam undergo the scientific strategy of {hardware} prognosis: changing elements one after the other till the issue goes away.

After reproducing the crash, the fellows begin with the reminiscence, swapping out Will’s earlier RAM with some new Patriot Viper DDR5 kits. And, after changing the entire sticks, the issue isn’t going wherever. The subsequent seemingly wrongdoer (or a minimum of the next-easiest half swap) is the facility provide, since Will’s present one is on the decrease finish of the vary for his high-power processor and GPU. Swapping in a near-identical Silverstone with a way more roomy 1200 watts didn’t remedy the issue, both. Nuts.

For a way more concerned resolution and the one Will suspected was the true core of the issue, it was time to swap out the processor. Will’s PC is utilizing a Core i9-13900K, one of the crucial highly effective CPUs round, however points with Fortnite and different video games utilizing the identical anti-cheat system have been pinned on defective processors.

After testing the unique half with a contemporary little bit of thermal paste on the AIO cooler, the fellows swap in a Core-i9 13900KS, which has the identical core setup however a hair quicker clock pace. (There was no similar processor sitting round to check.) Lo and behold, the processor swap labored and Will was in a position to play a full spherical with out crashing. Every week of dwelling testing confirmed that the system was undoubtedly fastened, pinning the blame on the unique processor.

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