yeah you computed it at 27amps (plus maybe an amp or two more considering i added +.2 on the northbridge and my RAMs are at 2.2? soon to get 2.3) my rig is stable as it is now @ 2450Mhz, im just worried my PSU might already on the edge considering its over a year old (about a year and 3 months) and it may not be able to output the rated voltages anymore but its hard to get it running all 27a via software huh?
well I wouldn't expect a power supply that doesn't have shoddy capacitors and that's not being ran full time at near it's capacity and/or under high temperature conditions to start to weaken until it's 3-5 years old. And when the capacitors do start to weaken then the voltage output's will drop a little bit but the components are going to cause it to increase it's amperage a little bit to compensate for the lower volts in order to get the watts they need.
the multimeter shows a perfect 11.99 V, with a veriation at of at max off -0.17 V, not really anything to fuss about I think, the 3.3(3) V line doesn't move at all, just like the 5.0(9) line. icon_confused.gif I'm trying to find a replecement PSU to borrow now, just to make sure. /edit± hmm, the power consumed is jumpy though, from 97 to 127 Watts in one or two seconds (right now), though I'm not sure how accurate that thing is. edit #2 The system is competely clean, fresh windows (XP x64) install (have to, a few of there crashes and windows is absolutely wasted. ) Drivers: BIOS version: 1013 nforce 6.68 forceware 93.71 SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_09_0007 (sound)
well it sounds like your PSU is ok...I'm thinking your motherboard might be the problem...like the motherboard voltage regulator going bad perhaps. Take a good look at the capacitors on the mobo and see if any of them are bulged or swelling or leaking electrolyte.
none of that all, mobo looks fine, I noticed a few dark/brown spots on the graphics card, where a few small chips (3mmx3mm or so?) are attached to the card. Is that just the result of the production proces, or a chip that's got too hot?
I think the spots are probably normal since all of the chips on the card that get really hot are covered by the heatsink. The "signal out of range" message that you see when the monitor shuts off could be caused by your monitor resolution and or refresh rate set too high...but I don't think that would cause a reboot too but I'm not sure. Something wrong with the video driver could cause that too though, so I think that's where I'd concentrate. Like uninstall the card logically in Device Manager and reboot into safe mode and run a driver cleaning program...and it wouldn't hurt uninstall the card physically and while it's out to make sure the edge card connectors on it are clean...and then reinstall the driver. Might want to use the original driver that came with the card (off the CD) since that is less likely to be corrupt. Driver files might have been corrupt during download so consider that possibility anyway and redownload or just try different drivers too.
*cough* the card is cooled by a water-cooling block (zalman reserator 1). Actually the lockups are very weird, sometimes the system gets really slow, doing nothing a few seconds, then responding again for a second, screen blinking, one or two times I got a BSOD, but basically it all ends up in the screen giving an out of range message, or me hitting reset before that. One time I managed to do a normal system restart before the whole system crashed, but couldn't restart windows because a kernel file was corrupted. edit: corrected some Engrish
lol...just assuming things gets me into more trouble...and i never learn lol So have you install some little heatsinks onto the VRAM chips? Those are the relatively large chips located kind of in a circle around the GPU/core chip. Are those the ones that are showing some brown spots? If you're watercooling it then I guess I should assume that you are overclocking it too, so try lowering the clocks and see if it crashes.
LOL :grin: I did install those, and the VRAM chips are not the chips with the brown spots, the chips with the spots look a bit like opamps, but then again, all the chips look the same I'll take a picture when I get get home. -edit, I had one of these VRAM heath sinks coming loose from the chip (didn't notice any weird artifacts), I replaced it, and because I saw no artifacts assumed the VRAM wasn't really effected. could it be that chip was damaged by overheating without me noticing it at that time? I have tried overclocking, it worked well, untill the crashes started, now it looks like the forceware drivers have troubles with coolbits (2.0), it will not overclock anymore.
well yeah it's possible that a chip was damaged if it was ran without good contact with the heatsink. I'm not sure what to think about your OCing not working until the crashing started or some troubles with Forceware drivers and Coolbits...did notice some discussions somewhere on that but I didn't really pay attention to it since I don't overclock my GPU's...I just tend to buy factory overclocked versions...out of curiosity see what OC I can get and then go back to factory due to the minimal frame rate improvements that I get with the cards I've had. You might want to ask around in the Overclocking forum here about why it won't OC.
I don't know what those components are...maybe someone that knows more about electronics does. This picture of an Asus 7800GT (http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/video/asus-7800gt/asus_78gt_card_front_bg.jpg&1=1 doesn't appear to even have them. It might just be some excess soldering residue.
Well, other sources tell me those brown spots are NOT good, and that'd make my problem a videocard problem, unfortunately no warranty on that one . I take it to the appropriate forums, thanks for your help Makalu.
Guys, what would you recommend for my rig? see specs <<< Corsair HX620W HEC Zephyr 750W Silverstone Olympia OP650 Thanks!
600W+ is seriously overspecced for your system, but out of those 3 psu's, id go for the corsair because its got the most amount of +12v power, and has a reputation of being very very quiet.
Yeah mate but Im hesitant to pick up the other 500w PSUs coz won't that hurt me if I upgrade to a geforce 8 series vc or add some HDD? Actually there is a HEC 550W winpower that I could buy for almost half the price of those three. Think I should go for it? Thanks! btw, I also like the corsair one, especially after reading the review of it from johnnyguru.
as long as you stay away from 8 series sli, a 500W psu will be fine for all you can throw at it. im not sure about the hec psu you said, i cant remember reading any reviews on it, so i cant say if its good or not, and havent got the time to look for them atm. maybe you can find the 520w corsair psu? still very good, and a lot cheaper than the 620.
its this one http://www.hec-group.com.tw/model.php?category=psu&sub_category=certified_psu&model=win edit: here's a review i forgot about this one: http://pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1818 hmmm the corsair 520w like the one your using right now? K man, i'll check it out and bug the seller/retailer if they have one like that lol