{"id":38291,"date":"2026-04-02T17:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.manchester-pc.co.uk\/shop\/2026\/04\/02\/psu-click-and-system-reset-in-cyberpunk-2077-on-an-rtx-5090-build-how-to-diagnose-and-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:02:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:02:21","slug":"psu-click-and-system-reset-in-cyberpunk-2077-on-an-rtx-5090-build-how-to-diagnose-and-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manchester-pc.co.uk\/shop\/blog\/psu-click-and-system-reset-in-cyberpunk-2077-on-an-rtx-5090-build-how-to-diagnose-and-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"PSU Click and System Reset in Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 5090 Build: How to Diagnose and Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Troubleshooting<\/span>PSU<\/span>RTX 5090<\/span>PC Building<\/span>Cyberpunk 2077<\/span><\/div>\n

PSU Click and System Reset in Cyberpunk 2077 on an RTX 5090 Build: How to Diagnose and Fix It<\/h1>\n
\n <\/svg> 2 April 2026<\/span>\n <\/svg> Manchester PC Team<\/span>\n <\/svg> ~14 min read<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n
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A click from your PSU under GPU load is not something to ignore.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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<\/span>Understanding the Symptom: What the Click Actually Means<\/h2>\n

A single click from a PSU at power-on or shutdown is completely normal. Most modern power supplies use an inrush-current bypass relay, and you will often hear it actuate when the PC starts or stops. That is expected behaviour and nothing to worry about.<\/p>

What is not normal is a click that happens during gameplay and coincides with the system either hard-resetting or cutting power entirely. If your PC then refuses to come back on until you physically cut AC power by switching off the PSU or pulling the plug, that is a strong sign that a protection latch has been triggered.<\/p>

The be quiet! Dark Power 14<\/a> is explicit on this point. It states that if a PSU safeguard trips, the system will typically reboot or power off, and you should check the PC for errors immediately.<\/p>

On the Windows side, these events usually appear in Event Viewer as Kernel-Power, Event ID 41<\/strong>. Microsoft describes this as Windows rebooting without a clean shutdown, caused by things like power loss, a forced power-off, or a fault that prevents Windows from shutting down gracefully. Microsoft also lists an underpowered or faulty PSU as one of the possible causes.<\/p>

If you are seeing an audible click, a sudden reset or power-off, and a hang that requires a manual AC cut to recover, that combination points strongly to a power delivery protection trip rather than a standard game crash or driver fault.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

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<\/span>Why Cyberpunk 2077 Triggers This When Other Games Don't<\/h2>\n

Cyberpunk 2077 is particularly good at provoking fast, sharp power transitions on high-end GPUs. Path tracing, frame generation, and the way the game shifts between dense combat scenes, menus, loading screens, and fast travel all create highly variable workloads that cause the GPU to swing rapidly between low and high power states.<\/p>

On an RTX 5090, Tom’s Hardware has measured power spikes of up to around 659W during Cyberpunk gameplay, using real-time inline measurement. That is well above the 575W Total Graphics Power figure listed in the official specs, and it reflects how transient peaks can exceed nominal ratings even in a well-configured system.<\/p>

The ZOTAC RTX 5090 is rated at 575W power consumption, uses a single 12V-2×6 input, and carries a 1000W recommended PSU guidance. NVIDIA similarly lists 1000W as the required system power in its reference specifications, though it notes these figures are configuration-dependent.<\/p>

The important thing to understand here is that average draw is not the whole story. Rapid swings during scene transitions, loading screens, and the start of a GPU-heavy sequence can produce sharper transient behaviour than a steady benchmark ever will. This is why many users report that their system passes stress tests without issue but crashes at specific moments in a single game.<\/p>

Stress test stability does not rule out a transient protection trip. The failure mode here is about peaks and timing, not sustained load.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

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<\/span>Why This Can Still Happen on a 1200W PSU<\/h2>\n

The be quiet!<\/a> Dark Power 14 1200W is not a low-quality or underpowered unit. It is built for modern high-end systems, supports ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1, and includes two native 12V-2×6 connectors. On paper, it should be more than sufficient. So why can it still trip?<\/p>

Multi-Rail Protection and Transient Behaviour<\/h3>

The Dark Power 14 uses multi-rail 12V protection by default. This means the 12V output is split across four independent rails, each with its own current limit. On the 1200W model, those limits are 33A, 33A, 45A, and 45A across 12V1 through 12V4, with the PCIe and PCIe 5.1 connectors associated with the higher-current 12V3 and 12V4 rails.<\/p>

Multi-rail designs add an extra safety layer by capping current per rail. The downside is that a very spiky load can trip OCP (overcurrent protection) or OPP (overpower protection) even when the total available power is well within the PSU’s rated capacity. This can happen when the GPU, CPU, and motherboard VRMs all ramp simultaneously during a sharp scene transition.<\/p>

The PSU does include an Overclocking Key function (OCK) that switches it from four independent rails into a single combined 12V rail. This is specifically designed to give more headroom for extreme GPU loads, and the manual is clear about how to use it: only press OCK when the power supply is switched off.<\/em><\/p>

ATX 3.1 and Instantaneous Peak Power<\/h3>

The move to ATX 3.0 and ATX 3.1 was driven in part by the recognition that modern GPUs can briefly exceed their rated TDP by a significant margin. The ATX 3.1 specification requires PSUs to handle instantaneous peak power at 200% of rated load for up to 100 microseconds. So while ATX 3.1 units are designed with this in mind, a specific combination of hardware, game, and cable routing can still land on a protection threshold, particularly if any compounding factor is present.<\/p>

A 1200W PSU tripping protection does not necessarily mean it is faulty or undersized. It can mean a specific transient pattern is briefly touching a protection threshold. The fix is usually configuration, not replacement.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The OCK switch on the Dark Power 14 groups all 12V rails into one. Only press it with the PSU switched off.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/section>\n\n
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<\/span>What Community Reports Tell Us<\/h2>\n

Forum and Reddit posts are not controlled tests, but they are useful for spotting patterns. Across multiple threads, a few things come up repeatedly.<\/p>