Video Card or PSU?

Russ86

Russ86

New member
May 8, 2009
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I bought a new video card about 3 weeks ago. RADEON HD 6950, for the first 2 weeks or so, it played smooth no hiccups... then all the sudden the screen would start just blanking out while playing games... going completely black... if I cycled power to the monitor, it would restore video for a couple minutes or so. It's also noteworthy that outside of playing games, it works fine.

Anyway, when I manually clock down the speed of the card from 840 to 500Mhz, there are absolutely no issues. The thing is though, I only have a 520 watt power supply, with a quad core processor, a solid state drive and another sata hard drive... so the question is.. is the problem the PSU or the Video card?
 


Russ86 said:
The thing is though, I only have a 520 watt power supply
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Uh, fucking duh! Way to run an otherwise respectable rig with a pile of shit power supply. The specs alone for the card call for AT LEAST 500 watts of power. Your also assuming just because your says 520 watts that it actually puts out that many watts. Depends on the brand, some do some don't. But you not only have to power your card you also have to power the rest of your system. Modern cards when being pushed should pull a lot more than 500w.

Clocking it down and it working is a tell tale sign that your card is not getting enough juice.

Go buy a 750w or higher power supply (personally I would just toss a 1000w in and forget it), and you should be fine.
 
Rage9 said:
Uh, fucking duh! Way to run an otherwise respectable rig with a pile of shit power supply. The specs alone for the card call for AT LEAST 500 watts of power. Your also assuming just because your says 520 watts that it actually puts out that many watts. Depends on the brand, some do some don't. But you not only have to power your card you also have to power the rest of your system.

Clocking it down and it working is a tell tale sign that your card is not getting enough juice.

Go buy a 750w or higher power supply (personally I would just toss a 1000w in and forget it), and you should be fine.
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This was my logic as well, but I also thought about this: If my video card was draggin down the rail on the PSU then the PC would reboot/crash no? And secondly, it is also suspicious that it worked fine playing the same games on the same settings for weeks.
 
Russ86 said:
This was my logic as well, but I also thought about this: If my video card was draggin down the rail on the PSU then the PC would reboot/crash no? And secondly, it is also suspicious that it worked fine playing the same games on the same settings for weeks.
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You don't know that for sure. Graphics cards probably have some break in time, would explain the gap. Technically I would expect a total crash, but really a lot of crazy stuff could (and does) happen to an under powered system. The most logical step is to up the power, reset the clock speeds and try it again. Either way, power is going to be an issue as you just don't have enough of it. Start there, it's the most logical choice.
 
Russ86 said:
Can you elaborate on the reasoning behind this?
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There is no reason behind it, you can't up the voltage or clock speeds when you don't have any extra power to send to it. Someone talking out of their ass.
 
Yep, start with the PSU.

My current rig had a weird as hell issue where it would not start up on a cold start (but fine with a restart).

Took ages to hunt it down and it came down to the PSU.

Get a good one above the watt requirements you have.

::emp::
 
I have to agree with the posters about the psu more than likely being the issue. A friend and I used to put rigs together by request for friends, family and anyone else that caught wind of getting a custom rig put together. The first thing we always started with was the specs of what people wanted and worked out the best psu for the system and then took it up to the next level (req 550watts we'd put in a 750 watt psu). People underestimate the effects, or lack thereof, of having an more than adequate power supply.

Like Rage, I can't tell you conclusively that the advice is correct, but I have blown out the arse of at least half a dozen psu's by trying out different power outputs on different rigs of my own.

Like someone said, it would be the logical place to start.
 
Done and done. Bought an 850 watt: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Professional-850-Watt-Certified-Compatible/dp/B0029F21LA/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1327912911&sr=1-2]Amazon.com: Corsair HX Professional Series 850-Watt 80 Plus Certified Power Supply Compatible with Core i7 and Core i5 - CMPSU-850HX: Computers & Accessories[/ame]


I still have a weird little feeling its the GPU, guess we will see soon, ordered overnight shipping.
 
I've actually HAD this problem a few years ago when Tigerdirect didn't send me my 500w PSU (that used to be a lot) and I had to try to run the rig off of a generic 350w for two weeks. However, mine would give out and switch to on-board graphics, I'd get a windows alert for it and would have to reset before my card kicked in again. Not quite the same, but the new power supply fixed it.
 
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