Quake3World

so i tried turning on my pc just now and it turns on for a second and immediately shuts off. it turns on and off. it keeps doing this until I'm forced to pull the power plug. I've mae no changes since last night, but I'm preety sure its the power supply, considering it was 800 watts, with the gfx card(550 watts) and CPU cooler(180 watts) alone that would only leave 70 watts more or less. not to mention i am ocing both the CPU and the gfx card.

sorry for any spelling errors I'm on my phone.

My guess is either the PSU or the motherboard. Leaning heavily to PSU. May need to spring for a 1200w if you have that much of a load on it.

hmm yeah i thought so, what if i wanted to sli, would the wattage of both gfx cards be simple addition (550 + 550)? or is that calculated differently?

and I'm not looking to spend a crazy amount of cash on a psu would a 1000 watt do the trick without sli??

check for popped capacitors on the mobo if u have the older style ones.

if not i'm also going with the PSU

i gotta find a link yet again on how to test the PSU without a PC.

stay tuned.

^Ghost wrote:hmm yeah i thought so, what if i wanted to sli, would the wattage of both gfx cards be simple addition (550 + 550)? or is that calculated differently?

and I'm not looking to spend a crazy amount of cash on a psu would a 1000 watt do the trick without sli??

Is 550 the usage of the card? Seems pretty high. Or is it the recommendation for the PSU wattage?

edit: The new Nvidia 580 'recommends' a minimum 600 watt PSU but it only uses 418 in full stress load.

I'm getting mixed results on the added wattage for sli. I would assume it doubles to be sure though. With non sli I would imagine 1000w would be fine, I'm still not convinced that your actual usage is topping 800 though. What are your specs? That would make it much easier.

here's the paper clip test of the PSU without a PC

http://www.overclock.net/faqs/96712-how ... y-psu.html

wattage calculator

http://www.antec.outervision.com/

According to that calculator with

Phenom II 970 @ 3.5 ghz
6gb ddr3
GTX 460 1gb
1 sata drive
1 bluray burner
3 120mm fans
2 usb devices

I need a 400w psu minimum. I'm running a 775w psu with no problems whatsoever. I added a second 460 just for kicks and it went to a suggested 505 minimum psu. Take that for what it's worth.

That's what? a 125W chip?
10watts per stick of ram,
15watts per hdd,
5 watts per optical
~1-10watts per fan.
2.5W per USB device ( assuming they are taking the full 500MA )
And the 460 can take up to 35A on the 12V rail ( according to the box mind you ) 420W.

So with my rough numbers and peak draw, i see 614watts of peak use.

Newegg has their one, but the numbers seem a little high to be honest ( but closer then the last ).
http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html

It recommends me a 690W PSU, yet all my components are overclocked and run perfectly on my Corsair TX650W. Take it with a grain of salt.

Keeping that in mind, Corsair downrates their psu's... take that with a grain of salt.

All in all, the 800 'should' handle it. I don't think it's overtasked unless it's a cheap psu and performing well under the rating. Also considering I really have to work at it to top out my GTX 460 and 970, I really doubt it's pushing the boundries. I think the psu is just faulty as opposed to over-stressed.

edit: Also, newegg's calculator seems to be outdated in some areas(no bluray or more than 4gb ddr3) but still shows to handle it well with an 800w psu.

Intel i7 920 oced to 4ghz
CPU cooler(as noted above) cooler master v8
5x 120mm fans
2x SATA HDD
1x external HDD
1x IDE disc drive
1x sata disc drive
1x gtx 275 896mb ddr3
11x usb ports (using 5 including external hard drive)
5x 2gb RAM ddr3
front and rear speaker panels
also connected my hd tv as a second monitor

mmm now that i think about it i do need more than 800 watts

and to answer your question scourge the minimum requirement for this gfx card is 550

Ok anything that has it's own separate power cable does not count towards the PSU, such as monitors, possibly speaker systems, and the external usb hdd would count towards usb not internal hdd.

Considering all that Som's calculator calls for 533w so with 267 overhead, you're ok at idle, but amp up the gpu from ~160 idle to ~400 load you'll probably need a little more, so yeah, I'd go with at least a 1000w psu if you plan on stressing everything. Also, I calculate that with the cpu oc'd to 4ghz.

i read a thread few mins ago about a 4GHz OC and 2 gtx 275 SLI, 6GB ram running on a 700W PSU, and his cards need 4x power cables (2 for each card )

and just FYI

Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 105 C
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W) 219 W
Minimum Recommended System Power (W) 550 W
Supplementary Power Connectors

that's from nVidia's site,

max is 219W

the min 550W is depending on what's in your PC

That's what I was thinking, I think the ratings are calling for more than what is actually used. I see no problem with the 800w for his system but the numbers say different. Actually I forgot to add in my 9800gtx+ that I use for physx in the second slot. And it gets to humming when I play stalker or Metro. That's 4 cables right there too. I still go with faulty psu instead of overworked psu.

edit: the ratings on the calculators, I know the ratings on the recommended psu also figure in the rest of your system not just the gpu.

My system has higher/more components than you do and it's running off of a Corsair 620W with more than enough power to spare. PSU ratings are not an accurate indication of actual power efficiency. 800W PSU should be more than enough as long as it's made by a reputable manufacturer who doesn't fudge the numbers.

Also double check your heatsinks to make sure that they are seated properly with a bit of thermal solution. If they are overheating, they may force a shutdown.

On that note, too much thermal compound can be just as bad or worse than not enough. These days, it takes a very thin film of paste to do the trick.

Scourge wrote:edit: Also, newegg's calculator seems to be outdated in some areas(no bluray or more than 4gb ddr3) but still shows to handle it well with an 800w psu.

Uh, you just don't know how to use it. If you have eg. 6GB DDR3 (3x2GB), set the RAM to 2GB DDR3 and the multiplier to 3

AmIdYfReAk wrote:Keeping that in mind, Corsair downrates their psu's... take that with a grain of salt.

Source?

They do. My Corsair is labeled as a 620W but that's their optimal load not maximum load. Other manufacturers will label only their maximum load.

yea when i bought my psu i bought the cheapest brand, something called xion, was like 60$

wondering why it crapped out on me now, its been a couple of weeks since i made any changes in the BIOS

Captain Mazda wrote:
Uh, you just don't know how to use it. If you have eg. 6GB DDR3 (3x2GB), set the RAM to 2GB DDR3 and the multiplier to 3

Oops, it's still primitive and wrong. It doesn't consider overclocking, any usb, fans, etc.

edit: oh yeah.

Captain Mazda wrote:

Scourge wrote:edit: Also, newegg's calculator seems to be outdated in some areas(no bluray or more than 4gb ddr3) but still shows to handle it well with an 800w psu.

Uh, you just don't know how to use it. If you have eg. 6GB DDR3 (3x2GB), set the RAM to 2GB DDR3 and the multiplier to 3

AmIdYfReAk wrote:Keeping that in mind, Corsair downrates their psu's... take that with a grain of salt.

Source?

The Southern ontario Corsair rep is my source, So i have little to nothing to post here in regards to that.

My next psu is going to be a corsair... as long as the rep keeps his word