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2900 XT, Are you Okay??

B

BluntedMind3030

n00b
Joined
Mar 11, 2007
Messages
3
Hello all, Yesterday I got my Asus 2900 XT with high hopes of playing some games that my old-school 7800 GT couldn't handle anymore. I played Cellfactor for about 30 min or so and I must say that I had a bit of fun for that short amount of time. After I got my fill of crazy things flying around, I close out the game and left my system on while I went to the store. I was gone for no more than a hour and when I came home.... I just slighty moved my mouse and my whole system crashed. After restarting I'm getting vertical-line screen defects and no boot into windows without restarting. Is my card dead now? Was 400 watts not good for it? I RMA the card but I will not send it back untill my new PSU which is 600 watts, and that's like a day or two from now. So is my card dead?
 
BluntedMind3030 said:
Hello all, Yesterday I got my Asus 2900 XT with high hopes of playing some games that my old-school 7800 GT couldn't handle anymore. I played Cellfactor for about 30 min or so and I must say that I had a bit of fun for that short amount of time. After I got my fill of crazy things flying around, I close out the game and left my system on while I went to the store. I was gone for no more than a hour and when I came home.... I just slighty moved my mouse and my whole system crashed. After restarting I'm getting vertical-line screen defects and no boot into windows without restarting. Is my card dead now? Was 400 watts not good for it? I RMA the card but I will not send it back untill my new PSU which is 600 watts, and that's like a day or two from now. So is my card dead?
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send it back now, it will take a while to get back anyway, you'll get it after two days trust me. idk what the problem is, but why did you use a 400W PSU. thats common sense come on now....ATi X2xxx are power hogs, although the 8xxx pwns them in every way imaginable
 
You probably killed your power supply. The card is likely fine. I'm surprised your 400 Watt power supply didn't die of fright right when you put the 2900XT in the case. If you got 30 minutes out of it, I'd say you did pretty good ;)
 
well im sure the 400w is ok if its a decent quality one. if not then yea maybe it is psu . i remember reading an article of a person running quadcore with sli 8800gtx on like a 500 watt and he was fine.
 
tvdang7 said:
well im sure the 400w is ok if its a decent quality one. if not then yea maybe it is psu . i remember reading an article of a person running quadcore with sli 8800gtx on like a 500 watt and he was fine.
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Are you sure about that? Think about it: it draws at least - *at least* 175 W full throttle (probably more like 200+, but I'm not in the mood to debate the R600 defenders tonight). 175W/12 = ~ 15A. It would have to have at least a 15A 12V rail, likely a lot more if it isn't super efficient. 3.3V and 5V are going to take up some of that 400W, too, so that leaves very little for every other thing in the case that needs 12V. Toss in a hard drive, an optical drive, a few fans and the MB/CPU and it is kind of a miracle it made it that far. It would have to be a *VERY VERY* efficient 400W to keep from keeling over under load. Add in the heat that it will no doubt generate and you've pretty much entered *miraculous* territory. I wouldn't use a 400W for a Geforce GTS, and we all can at least agree that a 2900XT uses more power than one of those.
 
Caffeinated said:
Are you sure about that? Think about it: it draws at least - *at least* 175 W full throttle (probably more like 200+, but I'm not in the mood to debate the R600 defenders tonight). 175W/12 = ~ 15A. It would have to have at least a 15A 12V rail, likely a lot more if it isn't super efficient. 3.3V and 5V are going to take up some of that 400W, too, so that leaves very little for every other thing in the case that needs 12V. Toss in a hard drive, an optical drive, a few fans and the MB/CPU and it is kind of a miracle it made it that far. It would have to be a *VERY VERY* efficient 400W to keep from keeling over under load. Add in the heat that it will no doubt generate and you've pretty much entered *miraculous* territory. I wouldn't use a 400W for a Geforce GTS, and we all can at least agree that a 2900XT uses more power than one of those.
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Wow. I need me some more knowledge.

Anyhoooo. I was debating only a year ago if a 430w psu would be good enough for a 3200+ amd cpu and a x800 :p . Well you my friend need to step up the psu. Quick.
 
You just need high quality PSU - my C2D @2,6GHz 2900XT 4GBram ....... including 24" montor eats 320W from wall when playing games (SupCom, CoH.....)
 
Caffeinated said:
I wouldn't use a 400W for a Geforce GTS, and we all can at least agree that a 2900XT uses more power than one of those.
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When running 3D it does. Yeah, you likely cooked the PSU running it that close to it's limit. Just hold off the RMA till you get that new PSU in and check the card again. Unfortunately it is possible you damaged the card too because bad things can happen when PSUs go down.
 
Dwight said:
When running 3D it does. Yeah, you likely cooked the PSU running it that close to it's limit. Just hold off the RMA till you get that new PSU in and check the card again. Unfortunately it is possible you damaged the card too because bad things can happen when PSUs go down.
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That's a good point, too, about power supplies occasionally taking other things out with them on the way down. HIgh quality ones won't, but those of questionable quality certainly will. I had a Rosewill that took a hard drive out when it died (it was supposedly a 550W one, too, which should have been plenty for a 3500+, Geforce 6800GT, DVD-RW and two drives...but I digress).

Check out the [H]'s review where one of the power supplies melted, and the other one took out the testing equipment - not once, but twice! Some of these PSUs don't even need to be on the market they are so dangerous.
 
I just hope it is a high quality 600 watt psu your getting.. Many cheaper no-name units can't get anywhere near their rated output, in real world operating conditions...
Unless you are using them in a freezer....
I too, would wait on the vid card RMA til you can check to see if it is actually dead with the new psu..
 
Caffeinated said:
Are you sure about that? Think about it: it draws at least - *at least* 175 W full throttle (probably more like 200+, but I'm not in the mood to debate the R600 defenders tonight). 175W/12 = ~ 15A. It would have to have at least a 15A 12V rail, likely a lot more if it isn't super efficient. 3.3V and 5V are going to take up some of that 400W, too, so that leaves very little for every other thing in the case that needs 12V. Toss in a hard drive, an optical drive, a few fans and the MB/CPU and it is kind of a miracle it made it that far. It would have to be a *VERY VERY* efficient 400W to keep from keeling over under load. Add in the heat that it will no doubt generate and you've pretty much entered *miraculous* territory. I wouldn't use a 400W for a Geforce GTS, and we all can at least agree that a 2900XT uses more power than one of those.
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The 8800 Ultra pulls out 175W under max load, the GTX pulls 184. the 8800 Ultra is actually a slightly tweaked G80 core.

its funny, computer companies conspire to push products on us that really dont do anything. Pci-e 2? What? We cant even saturate 8 pci-e lanes yet. 1kW psus? whaa? With an absolutly stellar system that max your looking at drawing is 600W.

Anyways, its not so much your rated PSU wattage but more who its made by and the rating for the rails. If you own some random raidmax 400W psu, I have no doubt itl die, but a good Enermax liberty 400W should last you just fine. Cheapo companies like to up the "total wattage" by claiming the 5V rails can handle 60amps. Whos gonna test that? for your card, I would say, get a PSU that you can deticate one rail to and that has a rating of 20A or more.

The enermax liberty 400W fits your profile, as do many other PSUs, but the liberty's come with a free key chain and a nilon book for holding cords, and they look good.

Although, you might consider looking at a 450W or 500W psu, as they're only a few bucks more, and it will mean that when under load your PSU wont be at 95% capacity. Even running constantly like that it should last for as long as the warenty, but if you want to push five or six years from this PSU, get something that wont be so loaded when your systems at its thirstiest.
 
Wow the 8800Ultra only pulls 175watt power drain on max load? I thought it would be WAY more then that lol
 
ServerKing said:
Wow the 8800Ultra only pulls 175watt power drain on max load? I thought it would be WAY more then that lol
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It's a revision to the G80. The main thing they hacked at was power consumption. I mean comon, the general public might not be away of the power requirements for todays GPUs, but people on hard forum are getting a bit fedup. Im not intrested in having to spend an extra $50 on the PSU alone so I can run some card, it's just stupid.
 
isnt this sort of off putting for graphic card designers, the only thing stopping from having some more sales is the fact the their PSU are crappy, wouldn't they try and make the card more efficient.
 
I'm sure this has been asked before ... probably often ...
but, is it safe to run a second dedicated PSU to power GFX card?
 
You can get the thermaltake 5.25 psu's I have the 250 watt peaks too 300 I was going to use this for my GTX if I get one in the future.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't run an x2900 XT on anything less than a 500w, quality branded powersupply.

You could run an 8800 GTS on a decent 400w powersupply, but not the x2900 XT.
 
tvdang7 said:
well im sure the 400w is ok if its a decent quality one. if not then yea maybe it is psu . i remember reading an article of a person running quadcore with sli 8800gtx on like a 500 watt and he was fine.
Click to expand...

A 500watt PSU would have to run at near maximum output on a setup like that under full load. Over a fairly short period of time, I think that the PSU would give up and die from the stresses. I wouldn't even attempt to try something like that with anything less than the best 500Watt units on the market. Seasonic, PC Power & Cooling, possibly Silverstone units.

You could not do this with a Deer or PowMax unit.

Caffeinated said:
Are you sure about that? Think about it: it draws at least - *at least* 175 W full throttle (probably more like 200+, but I'm not in the mood to debate the R600 defenders tonight). 175W/12 = ~ 15A. It would have to have at least a 15A 12V rail, likely a lot more if it isn't super efficient. 3.3V and 5V are going to take up some of that 400W, too, so that leaves very little for every other thing in the case that needs 12V. Toss in a hard drive, an optical drive, a few fans and the MB/CPU and it is kind of a miracle it made it that far. It would have to be a *VERY VERY* efficient 400W to keep from keeling over under load. Add in the heat that it will no doubt generate and you've pretty much entered *miraculous* territory. I wouldn't use a 400W for a Geforce GTS, and we all can at least agree that a 2900XT uses more power than one of those.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. The fact is that a 400Watt PSU isn't enough for most higher end configurations.

BluntedMind3030 said:
Yes all, I was foolish..... :eek:
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Yes, you were. Live and learn. I've made some intersting mistakes like this back in the day, we all do stupid things from time to time. The truth is though you got of lucky and things could have been much worse.
 
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