GTX 280 problem - 650 PS not enough?

[gggie]

I just got an EVGA GTX 280 -- it isn't working. I get a blank screen, and I can hear the card's fan reving up repeatedly (it whirrs for a bit, calms down for a couple seconds, then whirrs again, and repeats this pattern forever). (Tried turning on the computer about 5-6 times - once, I actually saw the boot up screen for a couple of seconds, but then lost the picture and the card did its repeated whirring up.)

Is this a power supply problem or a bad card? I've got a Seasonic 650W PS - is that not enough? I tried unplugging the power for a few non-essentials (DVD drive, fans) but it didn't help.

 

[JacobC1983]

theoretically that power supply should be more than enough for a single gtx 280... i run mine off a corsair 620 watt PS, so if I was you, I would try another video card in place of the gtx 280 and see if the pc boots, if it does you know its the card.. if it doesn't you know to look elsewhere for the problem.. such as bad psu, etc

 

[gggie]

Well, managed to solve my problem - in case it helps anyone else (it's hard to explain simply):

The card requires you to plug in one 6-pin power connector and one 8-pin power connector. My PS has two 6-pin power connectors for a video card, but no 8-pin. The card comes with two adapters: (1) an 8-pin that needs TWO 6-pins to power; and (2) a 6-pin that needs TWO normal power connectors to power.

I had it set up this way when it did NOT work: my two 6-pin connectors were plugged into the 8-pin adapter, which was plugged into the 8-pin slot on the card + I had the 6-pin adapter connected to the card (powered by two normal connectors).

The change I made that fixed the problem: plug one of the system's 6-pin connectors directly into the card + plug the other into the 8-pin adapter + plug the provided 6-pin adapter (powered by two normal connectors) into the 8-pin adapter.

 

[Zinn]

Sounds like a weird solution. For whatever it's worth, EVGA writes that those adapters are only for temporary use. I can't imagine that daisy chaining two of them together would be a good idea. You should probably be looking into a new power supply if you value the long-term health of your components.