Ticking bomb or passed the stress test ?

[draconia34]

Hi ppl !!

i recently upgraded from 8600gt ddr3 to ASUS EAH4830 .( on 25th July 2009 to be exact) now here is the puzzle i cant complete !

i have a 350watt psu that came with my gigabyte case , i installed the card no problem , i put it under a stress test of 3 games at max and very high for about 5 hours .

(cod4 max, fallout 3 very high, farcry 2 very high)

my good old 8600gt froze after 30min on cod4 and farcry 2 just randomly crashed. fallout 3 was just plain ugly and the fps drop bug was really annoying.


now if the card wasn't getting enough power while under stress test it would have restarted or frozen . but its been working fine . i have a 6ghz AMD dual core 64bit and 3gig ddr2 ram. im running on xp pro . (just waiting for windows 7 to upgrade to 4gig ram ^^, ....)

is this a ticking bomb or has the psu passed the test ?

note: i could get a 450w or 500w psu anytime i want. saving money is all im doing atm. but for how long maybe until 350w goes ?

 

[draconia34]

any help would really be appreciated !!!!

 

[draconia34]

also the gpu fan seems to spin at max all the time , im guessing its not getting enough power ? PLEASE HELP ITS URGENT. IM CLUELESS when it comes to power supplies !!!

 

[sepayne21]

you upgraded from an 8600gt, or your upgrade was the 8600gt? games don't have to freeze or your computer reboot if you don't have adequate power to your card. sometimes it'll just kick you out of your game.
it may be your power supply, but that card only requires 300W so you might be fine.

When you (assuming you upgraded to 8600gt) did you remove all video/display drivers through the control panel and then with DC(driver cleaner) pro?

try doing this and then installing new drivers once this is complete. Next step, get a decent power supply. for single card gaming, if you're sticking with mid range graphics, get a 500 to 550W power supply. If you're wanting to get a high end gfx card, get a 600 to 650W power supply.

Pay close attention to the 12V rail and how many amps it can push. Most gfx cards will say "needs XX amps on the 12V rail" That is what's important. if it has 2 or 3 12V rails, just add those numbers up for your total 12V rail output.

Very important... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR WHEN BUYING A POWER SUPPLY!!! If possible, fight your urges to be cheap on this one. I'm not saying a cheap supply won't work, but your 12V rail will "float" up and down depending on load. There isn't as much voltage regulation (which is why it's cheaper).

 

[draconia34]

ive checked out a number of psu's and i might get an antec or coolermaster . thanks for the huge tip !!

just to clear it up i upgraded my 8600gt to an ati ASUS 4830 . i dont really need 2 hdds so i can disconnect one for now while i wait for psu upgrade.


do you know why my ati 4830 fan spins at max all the time ? asus smartdoctor doesnt allow me to choose smartcooling . and its really a pain.

 

[draconia34]

my current psu says

output
12v - 17A
+5v - 35A
+3.3v - 28A

so the new gfx card needs 26A and ive only got 17A

#@!#@!##!@##!#

 

[Hard Line]

I would recommend corsair or pcp&c for power supply to be honest, i have heard antec has had soe relibility issues ( i could be fixed by now) and i never truxted coolermaster for power supplies. you can get a decent corsair for around 80 give or take that will match your needs

 

[draconia34]

ill check out the corsairs as the suppliers here also sell them .

 

[ahslan]

the reason why your fan is always spinning at 100% is because the fan on your video card only uses a 2 pin adapter and therefore is not able to change the RPMs...the only way to make the video card quieter would be to purchase an aftermarket cooler for your video card...