External power to the Video Card?

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Blammo[doh]

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Nov 2, 2004
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WIth all the discussion about the power requirements of the 6800's, and people having trouble getting enough power, etc, it brought up a thought:

Has anyone tried hooking an external power supply directly to the video card only? I have a couple of extra 350W power supplies I could hook up and take some load off, maybe OC better.

Thoughts?
 
I'm sure it would work fine, would look a little strange - especially with an extra PSU coming out of the case. But yeah, it would work.
 
some cases have room for a 2nd PSU. you can setup a relay so when you turn one PSU on, the other turns on as well.
 
Would there be any problems with the differing ground, or the fact the card pulls MOST of it's power from the AGP slot, which wouldn't be sourced from the same PSU?
 
Thanks for the feedback all... now the $1m question -- anyone done it successfully yet? Would love to know before I smoke my video card. :p
 
i've done it before :) and it worked great and i powered my ultra with a no name 250w psu... but i didn't like the looks and my case wouldnt hold 2 psu and i got rid of it..
 
Blammo[doh] said:
Would there be any problems with the differing ground, or the fact the card pulls MOST of it's power from the AGP slot, which wouldn't be sourced from the same PSU?
Click to expand...

I believe the 6800 series pulls most of its current through the molex connector, not the AGP slot.

I'm not sure about the difference in grounds. Perhaps you could just tie the grounds together?
 
Tried it, didn't solve the issue I was chasing.

I powered up the power supply to the video card first, then the computer.

Nothing blew up == good
didn't solve problem == bad
 
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