PC crash and strange alt-tab

Editing the post because I thought it was a Steam-only issue, but it appears I just wasn't in the right area in the standalone client. This happens in both the standalone client, and in the Steam version.

Apparently, whenever I'm in Act 2 Fellshrine, or in the Armorer NPC's dungeon created in Fellshrine looking for the Karui(?) spirit, my PC will simply turn itself off and restart, as if there was a power surge. I didn't have the issue all day, and I don't know which other zones it will happen in, but I can't walk through Fellshrine for more than a minute or two without my PC just rebooting itself. There are no errors, no BSOD, no lag, etc. I can play anywhere in act 1 and anywhere else I've been in act 2 so far, as well as any other games, and have never had the issue.

i7 3930K
32GB RAM
Windows 7 x64
Sound Blaster Z audio card
GTX 980

Also happens in Chamber of Sins level 1. So I'm no longer able to advance. All of the other zones on the eastern side of town seem to be fine, but I can't even get across Fellshrine to the cathedral or to Chamber of Sins 2 before the crash occurs so I don't know about those zones.

the pc simply turning off strongly points to a hardware related problem (power supply, graphics card).

can you check cable connections of your power supply?

did you do the usual stuff like checking temperatures using hwmonitor?

The connections look good. No heat issues. While running through PoE zones my cpu is 42-46 and gpu is 62-64. PoE barely affects my temps at all.

I swear I remember a sound bug causing BSOD issues in the same way before. I remember having the problem. No BSODs this time though, just the crash.

I'm not sure what else to do. It's only PoE. This rig has never done this until yesterday. All other games are fine.

I experience a similar PC crash in specific areas (Merc Dominus p2 every time) since patch 2.3. I tried updating/removing drivers, and even reinstalling the game on a different SSD. I have stress tested my CPU and GPU for hours (using stock settings--no OC); i5 6600k, GTX 980ti. I don't believe that this is a coincidental hardware stress issue. My PC is beyond powerful enough for a game like PoE; I've been playing many load-heavy games (Dark Souls 3, lots of VR titles) for a few months now and only experience the crashing playing PoE in these very specific instances.

I've already been in contact with support about this, but I just wanted to drop in with my story to possibly corroborate a real issue with PoE 2.3.x on certain systems.

Hope this can be resolved! :)

4 years old issue

I did a full clean on nvidia drivers and installed the new ones. It alleviated the problem, and I had hoped it may be fixed, but it happened again last night. Still isolated to Path of Exile. This is horrifying in HC Prophecy.

Just happened again on an alt. Walking into Oak's compound on normal.

Another strange issue that already happened a couple times on Izaro on another character.

I just walked into my first map (Dunes) and within about ten seconds, my client seemed to alt-tab itself. All three of my monitors went black. I thought it was the crash above again, but the PC was still on. After several seconds of silence, I heard my character taking damage for a couple seconds, and then all three monitors reappeared, and PoE was back at the login screen. Thankfully, most of the enemies were up on a ledge and couldn't get to me, so I didn't lose the character. But now I'm afraid to even try another map. I can't survive for the ~7 seconds when this happens very often.