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Exactly how much power do I need?

H

Holy Roman Empire

Gawd
Joined
Aug 20, 2002
Messages
517
I've got this BFGtech fx 5900 that displays artifacts under heavy 3d application. The thing is, upgrading the powersupply lessened the problem, and then clocking my CPU back helped even more. The thing is, I've got a 520watt PSU thats rated at 28watts 12volt and delivers fantastic performance otherwise. Running my rig with an antec 350watt gave me terrrible artifacts in every part of 3dmark03 except the plane part. INstalling the powertoys PSU rid me of the artifacts in the battle of proxycon, and clocking back from 235x10.5 to 200x10 made the artifacts in the Troll's layer disappear, and in the MotherNature demo the artifacts got fewer. Whats the deal, should I get a more powerful PSU, or is my vidcard vidcrap? Seems like it should be powerful enough. All I've got is an AXP2100+, 1 gig of ram, and 2 hard drives running on a DFI Lanpart Ultra B. I even unpluigged my optical/floppy drives here.
 
I'm just stabbing in the dark here, because a 350 watt should be more than enough let alone 500+ -- maybe it's heat? Some PS produce more heat than others, and heat can cause artifacts for sure. You downclock your processor (less heat), and they go away. . .
 
Without you physically taking a DVOM and measuring your voltages under load, there is no way to know really what the problem is. Fire it up, stress the card out and measure the yellow and red voltages on a spare molex. If they are under 12V and 5V (within 5% in my book) respectively, you have a problem. You might see if the connector you are using for the videocard has other devices on it.
 
punisher said:
Without you physically taking a DVOM and measuring your voltages under load, there is no way to know really what the problem is. Fire it up, stress the card out and measure the yellow and red voltages on a spare molex. If they are under 12V and 5V (within 5% in my book) respectively, you have a problem. You might see if the connector you are using for the videocard has other devices on it.
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You can also use Motherboard Monitor 5 to do this. Just open up MBM Dashboard and it has all your voltages. If you hae two monitors, keep it open while you run 3DMark, otherwise run something windowed and keep an eye on them.
 
Something tells me its not heat. I've got a decent watercooling system, and I 've never seen MBM read higher than 34C CPU diode when running Prime 95 for hours. The card is on a wire all by itself, made sure of that during setup.
Punisher... DVOM? Know of anywhere I can pick up a cheap-ish digital multimeter?
I'm gonna try leaving MBM dashboard up on my second monitor while running 3dmark 03, but I seem to recall hearing some concern on exactly how accurate MBM really is.
 
Well, my voltages according to MBM are within 5%, though not by much. The 12v line sags to 11.49 it seems. Do I need a new PSU?
 
It is a PCToys PowerMaxx 520. Its a few (2-3) years old these days. Reviews around the net note fluctuations in the voltages, though they do not find any ill effects from these... I know its not the best most powerful thing around, but neither is my rig damnit.
 
Holy Roman Empire said:
It is a PCToys PowerMaxx 520. Its a few (2-3) years old these days. Reviews around the net note fluctuations in the voltages, though they do not find any ill effects from these... I know its not the best most powerful thing around, but neither is my rig damnit.
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My thoughs exactly. Your system shoudlnt need a whole lot, you made it sound like you tried this, but just incase, strip your PC down to the bear essentials. The hard drive with windows on it and your graphics card, and fans. Unplug any CDroms, floppy, lights ect. Also make sure the card has its own dedication power line. Just out of curiousity, have you ever gotten an air from Nvidia Sentinal sayings your card was not recieving enough power and was downclocked? That woudl be a sure sign of PSU problems. Otherwise, do you have a friends PC you coudl expariemtn. Swap out graphics cards, PSU, ect to narrow down the problem?
 
Done the stripped down deal. Only time I've gotten the error is when the card was unplugged. I could try popping it into my room mate's Gateway, though something tells me it didn't ship with a powersupply fit for the task anyway...
 
Holy Roman Empire said:
Done the stripped down deal. Only time I've gotten the error is when the card was unplugged. I could try popping it into my room mate's Gateway, though something tells me it didn't ship with a powersupply fit for the task anyway...
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I dont think that card needs a whole lot of juice. Another thing you can can try tho, leave the card unplugged and load up windows. It will downclock the card. Then go run 3dmark, see if it artifacts. Your card may have just taken some wear and cant handle its default clock speeds, in whcih case an RMA is in order.
 
Holy Roman Empire said:
Tried the down clocked thing already, no luck. The card is fresh from an RMA... I
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What happened to it previsouly? Same problem? Maybe it wasnt the card....
 
Never ever trust MBM or any other monitor program. All it does is report what the board's monitoring system reports, whether it is correct or not. Measure it with a real DVOM, then move to other troubleshooting steps.
 
Damn, this is a tough call. Your power supply isnt very good, but I would think that if it were the issue, the card woudl downclock and give you power errors. With everything else unplugged, you should be able to see an improvment also. I cannot think if any other part in your comptuer that could cause that, and two dead cards in a row would be tough. Sorry if you already answered these questions, but do you either have another card you could test in your computer or another computer you could test your card. When you don't know what is causing the problem, the best thing is to grab two computers and constantly swap out parts until you find one that doesnt work in either system.
 
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