My computer "eats" videocards

JdoubleG

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Joined
Sep 21, 2003
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Here is a puzzle for you.

I built my computer a year and a half ago, with the intention of it being a decent gaming computer. It had an athlon 64 3500 processor and a Radeon 9800 pro graphics card. It was many many times better than my old computer and I enjoyed playing modern games..

About a month after I put the machine together it started to have some minor problems. every once in a while it would glitch on startup, causing staticy vertical bars about an inch thick to appear every three inches or so across my screen, and some inverted colors.. The only soloution was to power my system off for a few seconds and then back on. A simple restart would not correct the problem. It would happen maybe once a week.. so I would just ignore it.

A few months ago everything came apart; the bars would stay no matter what, the color was off everywhere; it was so bad that the system was unusable. I tried the card in another computer just to make sure it was the card that was defective, and sure enough, same problem.

I figured I'd just gotten bad luck and been shipped a damaged card, so I hopped on Newegg and bought a Geforce 6600gt. It's a great little card, but the vertical bars still appear once in a hile on startup. This has my worried; is my computer going to destroy another card?

So, has anyone heard of anything like this happening, or have any advice? The only thing I can think off is maybe something is off with my powersupply... But I really don't know. Any help is appreciated!
 
A bad power supply seems most likely. What kind of voltages are you pulling on the +/-12V?
 
post the specs off of the sticker on the side of your power supply. You might also have a problem with the mobo, but psu is more likely.

Now that I think of it, why don't you post your entire system specs?
 
System specs:
Gigabyte K8NS ultra
Athlon 64 3500+ (stock settings)
Maxtor 120gig harddrive
1gig ddr400 dual channel memory
Rosewill 6600gt 128megabyte graphics card
generic brand DVD/RW

As for the power supply.. I really don't understand what I'm looking at.. but, the chart is set up as wattages by voltages... so Under the 400w +12v it say's 15A, and the 400w -12v say's .8A.. Is that the info you were asking for?

And the next question: What should I replace it with given my system specs, What're the chances of my card already being permanently damaged, and how long could I run it as is?
Thanks!
-JdoubleG
 
If it is 15 amps on just a single rail 12 volt that is not nearly enough.
 
and another builder learns the importance of having clean power....
the [H]ard way....
I learned the easy way and just never sacraficed quality power. I'm very particular and run 2 APC ups's to filter the power too. one for both LCDs, the other for the compy.

better safe than sorry when you have so much money invested in the setup.
 
Yeah, you are lucky you didn't discover this as the psu pops while running 3d mark to show your customer what a cool system you just built them. *shudders*
 
yea, if you bought that with a case....get off it, especially if it's an aspire case. It's got some cheaply chinese manufactured power supply. Go Fortron or some other well known company.
 
lol i learned when playing doom3 at 3 in the morning, 5.1 surround sound, pitch dark. just picture something making a loud boom at the quietest moments of the game
 
I'll sell you my Enermax 600watt Noisetaker for $100 :) Only used it for 2 months, got the box and everything.

My PC & P 1 Kilowatt comes tomorrow, so I don't need it anymore.
 
AppaYipYip said:
I'll sell you my Enermax 600watt Noisetaker for $100 :) Only used it for 2 months, got the box and everything.

My PC & P 1 Kilowatt comes tomorrow, so I don't need it anymore.

What do you need 1000 watts for?
 
yeah, i had a similar problem - i never really figured it out until the power supply melted



oh, that nasty burning plastic smell is coming back to me...
 
roaf85 said:
What do you need 1000 watts for?


My complete system draws about 468 watts during full gaming, at 100% utilization the estimate is around 664 watts, but that will never happen.

The 1 Kilowatt PSU is an investment into the future. It will also be much more efficient than my current PSU, in the end costing less to run. Not to mention the incredible build quality and temperature ratings that PCP&C power supplies are rated at. :)
 
AppaYipYip said:
The 1 Kilowatt PSU is an investment into the future. It will also be much more efficient than my current PSU, in the end costing less to run. Not to mention the incredible build quality and temperature ratings that PCP&C power supplies are rated at. :)

I was going to say something like that but "He who dies with the coolest toys wins" sounds so much better :D
 
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