Help, did PCIe 2.0 blow my PSU? - (more...)

[Oz19]

I'm currently running an nVidia 8600GTS. It runs the games I play fairly well but chokes when there are tons of players around or excessive amounts of spell effects going off around me.

Long story short I need to upgrade this thing to fully enjoy the kinds of games that I play. However the last time I tried to upgrade I bought an XFX ATI Radeon HD4850 PCIe 2.0. In the process of installing this new XFX card and troubleshooting the problem I blew out 2 PSU's. My troubleshooting determined that the video card for one of two reasons was blowing out my PSU.

A) Even though PCIe 2.0 is supposed to be compatible with 1.0 and 1.1; the port version caused a short that blew the PSU? If it's port related is this because of the 5% of PCIe 1.0's to be incompatible due to VIA chipsets?

B) The backwards compatibility and/or possibility of a VIA chipset is NOT the issue. I simply got unlucky with a faulty video card.

Please help me with which is the most likely answer; A or B. It cost me $120.00 in PSU's just to return the XFX and revert to my old 8600GTS. I can't afford to waste money on a new PSU again.

Should I risk it? I don't know what a VIA chipset means or is exactly but could it cause the issue I experienced when trying to upgrade to that XFX? My PC is a prebuilt store-bought ACER that I upgraded the important parts on. It is roughly 6 years old now.


Thank you for reading. Appreciate ANY input that can help me assess the risk vs reward of trying again here.

 

[wa1]

2 blew PSU??
What brand? model?

 

[rolli59]

Agree on the PSU comments above specially if it was all the std Acer PSU's. A 6 year old Acer computer is not going to handle a lot better card than a 8600GTS because of limitations of other components.

 

[number13]

I noticed you did not include spec's on you hardware, the PSU how many Watts, a lot of mfgs put in PSU's that are borderline, I wouldn't be suprised if yours is 250 to 300 W, so upgrades usually mean PSU's as well, what Wattage were you trying to install, I have not heard of any porting problems between PCI-E 1.0 and 2.0
Rolli59+

 

[Oz19]

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Dual-Core CPU
4GB PC6700 DDR2
500GB HD
NVIDIA 8600GTS PCI-E
500watt PSU

I've always used a 500watt PSU. I'm positive my PSU wasn't the issue and also for the record I never used the ACER stock PSU but it was a 400watt.

Basically the only things left that are stock in my ACER is the Mainboard and Hard Drive. It has new RAM, new CPU, new PSU, new Vid Card, etc. It was simply cheaper for me to purchase the prebuilt at the time and build on top of it.