Not running enough amperage to a GPU

imakamakaze

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Aug 2, 2012
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Hello,

I have a GeForce GTX 550 Ti.

My PSU is rated to give 18.5 Amps on the +12 volt rail but the GPU I have requires 22 amps.

I have a 500 watt PSU, What will happen if I continue to run like this?

>> Kama
 
"My PSU is rated to give 18.5 volts on the +12 volt rail but the GPU I have requires 22 amps"
that statement makes no sense, are you telling that you measure 18.5 volts on the 12volt line coming from PSU?

anyway GTX 550 ti only requires 400w PSU, so any 400w + power supply will do,
 
22amps at 12v is 264w which is more than a stock GTX580 consumes. The actual load of your card is likely in the 10amp range when under full load but that doesn't exclude the rest of your system. Usually most power supplies are rated for max sustained or worse max load for a few seconds but true wattage depends on a lot of factors. Factors include but not limited to temp, build quality, the quality as well condition of the capacitors inside the unit, and the quality of the power going into the unit.

It is likely that your unit isn't providing it's rated current and needs to be replaced. Some units are under rated or have a safety margin of where the unit can be safely overloaded beyond what it is designed for but very dangerous.
 
No. If there isn't enough amperage supplied, your card would not work. However, if there isn't enough amperage according to NVIDIA RECOMMENDATION, but you have the 6-pin plugged in and the card is running, you have nothing to worry about. Nvidia often overestimates the recommended power.
 
So, as i've been using the card a little more, I've been noticing that sometimes the video games will crash to the desktop and reboot to pick up where i left off. games will lock up a bit, black screen then recover to where I was previously. If this is any help to give further information. So, now do you have any idea as to why this is happening now?
 
PC specs

I should mention that when running video games on max settings it tends to crash as mentioned in my previous post. when running them on low it doesn't seem to crash.

as a precaution, i put my old card back in so as not to damage things, so i'll be a little it running Furmark and Prime 95, so bear with me.
 
Alrighty, I got the following error when running them together.

" The NVIDIA OpenGL driver detected a problem with the display driver and is unable to continue."

It then directed me to NVIDIA's website to do some follow up...

It crashed about 2 minutes in as well. Hope this is of help.
 
Yeah, it crashed some where around 2 minutes. Temperature was up to about 80 C or more, I didn't see the final temperature as i was looking away when Furmark closed. that was the last temperature I remember seeing.
 
Definately sounds like a poor quality psu imo

If this was me before I even attempted to purchase a new gpu for a prebuilt I would upgrade the psu as well, 1 to know I will be able to power it, 2 because prebuilt power supplies are just ugly paper weights imo.

Installing a psu into that case is doable so do it 😛
 
Yes unfortunately it does sound like power issue.. I'd recommend getting something like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026

It's cheap and it will get the job done without any problems.

However, before going and spending money, I'd think you need to make sure it's power issue. Sounding like it is not enough.

First of all, does prime + furmark crash on your old card?

If yes, then it must be either RAM or power. To check ram, you can use this freeware program memtest x86. www.memtest.com

If no, I'd try that card in another PC (with another power supply) and see if that happens too. Ask a friend to let you try it or something like that. If it happens in his PC as well, your card is faulty, you should ask for a replacement. If it doesn't happen on his PC, then it must be power issue.
 
PSU suggestion wise

Corsair CX/TX/HX/AX
Antec High Current Gamer/Earthwatts Platinum
Rosewill HIVE/Capstone*also available modular*/Fortress
NZXT Hale90/Hale82
XFX Core/Pro
OCZ ZX/ZS
Seasonic
Silverstone


all worth looking at
 
@Sunius

The error i'm getting is with the new card (GTX), I haven't tried it with the old card yet (NVIDIA GFORCE 8400). I'll do that tomorrow, as it's getting late here.

A friend suggested to me This PSU as it would probably last me a while if I were to build/buy a new computer.

@akamrcrack

Yeah, i've been meaning to give this computer some attention for a while as it's sat for the better part of the last year. I think I kind of rushed into things but this comp needs some upgrading anyway as it is 3 years old already.
 
ahh, sorry, I forgot to mention that the HD 4850 died like a year ago. I took it to a computer guy to "knew what he was doing" and put like a 4 year outdated card in, that GFORCE 8400.

 
So I bought This Corsair PSU. I ran FurMark and Prime95 and now I get this error:

The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue.

The application must close.

FurMark crashed after about 2:30 and GPU was up to 80 C. GPU load was at 99%. It ran a lot better this time than the last time

Is this normal or am I doing something wrong?