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Do I need a new PSU?

Viper87227

Viper87227

Fully [H]
Joined
Jun 2, 2004
Messages
18,017
I ran into an odd issue today, and I think my PSU may be to blame. The system I am referring to is the first one in my sig. I added an X-Fi to that system, and it caused lockups in BF3. Couldnt make it more than a couple minutes without a BSOD or a hard freeze. Prior to that I was using a USB DAC (AC powered), and was not having any issues.

After exhausting every possible option with the card, I decided to set all my overclocks back to stock. Didn't help. Then I decided to drop my two 560 Ti's down to the stock clock of 822mhz (down from the factory OC 900mhz), and what do you know, I can play BF3 just fine. So I'm thinking now, perhaps I was on the very brink of what my PSU was happy with, and adding the X-Fi card was enough to push it over the edge? I've got no audio problems when playing music. I also tried DX:HR without issue, but that doesn't put nearly as much load on my GPU's or CPU as BF3 does.

My PSU is 1KW, which SHOULD be plenty of power for this system, but I also realize its a very early 1KW unit. Perhaps its just not up to the task anymore? If it really is time for me to move on, what should I be looking for? Ideal price would be around $100. I can go a little higher if need be, but dropping $200 on a PSU just ain't in the cards right now.
 
The PSU should be fine. It's more likely that your overclock was not entirely stable.
 
Zero82z said:
The PSU should be fine. It's more likely that your overclock was not entirely stable.
Click to expand...

It's been completely stable at what it was for the past few months. Likewise, I still had issues when at the factory overclock. If the cards were bad out of the box, I probably would have noticed some time ago.
 
Electronics can play really weirdly with each other. It is entirely possible that adding the X-Fi card caused your system as a whole to be unstable at overclocked speeds, whether by interacting directly with the cards (via drivers) or through the motherboard.
 
In effort to try and determine if it really is my PSU getting overloaded, I ran a bit of a test. I pulled the 500W Enermax Liberty unit from my wifes PC and ran two PSU's. I ran the CPU/MB off the Enermax, and then the two GPU's, HDDs, Fans, ect. were all still running on the BFG. Didn't make a lick of difference. BF3 didn't even make it a minute before locking up. I also tried disabling SLI, and still no change. So, probably not power related after all?
 
After more messing around, I'm not entirely ready to give up on the PSU being the issue. I formatted windows, reset everything back to stock, still didn't fix my problem. Assuming the card was just bad at that point, I yanked it. Still no luck. Something went wrong in my system that wasn't a problem two days ago.

Since I was thinking GPU's at this point, I fired up furmark. Didn't last 10 minutes before getting a BSOD. So, I figured at this point I'd pull a card and test them one at a time. Both of them can run furmark without a lick of problems. Running it with both cards kills my system. The warmer of the two cards tops out around 85C, which isn't unreasonable for furmark, and is still well within what a 560 Ti is rated to (99C). I don't think its shutting off due to overheating.

I'm going to go back to two cards and try dropping the clocks below stock to see what that does. But since both test fine on their own, i'm hesitant to suggest that either card is bad. I also ran P95 for a while this morning just to make sure my CPU was kosher, and had no problems there. Being that each piece of hardware seems to work fine on its own, but my computer self destructs when everything is put under a heavy load... I'm back to suspecting the PSU.

Anything else I could try to help diagnose if this is the issue?
 
Run your cards individually in the second PCI-E slot on your motherboard. There's a possibility that the PCI-E slot for your second card went bad.
 
Hmm, at this point not too sure what to tell you. It is possible that your BFG power supply did go bad, but there's no way to tell until you stick a new power supply in there.

Try powering your 560s with that Enermax Liberty, don't worry, it can handle just the 560s.
 
Tsumi said:
Hmm, at this point not too sure what to tell you. It is possible that your BFG power supply did go bad, but there's no way to tell until you stick a new power supply in there.

Try powering your 560s with that Enermax Liberty, don't worry, it can handle just the 560s.
Click to expand...

It's only got two PCI-E connectors, and I don't have any molex to PCI-E adapters. That was my plan initially, until I realized I couldn't power both cards on the liberty.
 
Hmm, then the best you can do is try powering one card. Since your system does fine with just one card, putting the second card on the Liberty might help you determine the issue. Heck, you can try just powering only one 560 off the BFG.
 
Tsumi said:
Hmm, then the best you can do is try powering one card. Since your system does fine with just one card, putting the second card on the Liberty might help you determine the issue. Heck, you can try just powering only one 560 off the BFG.
Click to expand...

I may. Oddly enough, I just played BF3 for about an hour by downclocking my cards t0 822mhz, which is Nvidias stock clock (MFG OC is 900mhz), and it worked fine. Yet, I can run furmark just fine at 950mhz no problem on either card.

I'm still not sure whether to blame BF3 or hardware, but i'll keep messing with it.
 
It's impossible to apply logic to computer systems, that's part of the fun ;)

Edit: It's also possible that it is artifacting in Furmark, but you might not be noticing it. Run OCCT GPU test with the error checker on. Also, if your card supports it, run the OCCT GPU Memtest.
 
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