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Think this is a PSU problem

J

johns996

n00b
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
16
So I just put together a mostly new rig for playing Dota2 and because I was way overdue to upgrade my old Core2 Duo. Anyway, after getting everything together and running I'm finding that Dota crashes almost every time. Some times it takes 30 minutes or so, but eventually the screen locks up and I have to alt tab out of it, kill the game and restart it.

I thought it might just be Dota but I can get similar crashes out of of Metro Last Light and Borderlands 2. The funny thing is I can run Prime95 and FurMark without an issue (never tired both at the same time, but that seemed a bit excessive). I also ran Memtest for 9 hours without an error.

So, with all that said I'm thinking this might be a PSU issue since that's the old piece inside my case I haven't just replaced. Here's my build:

Intel Core i5-4670K
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Heatsink
EVGA Z97 FTW
Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1866 MHZ
Intel 730 Series SSD 240GB
WD BLACK SERIES 2TB SATA
ASUS SATA 24X DVD Burner
EVGA GeForce GTX650Ti Boost 2GB GDDR5 (~1 year old)
PC Power and Cooling S75QB 750W (~6 years old, specs)

Seems like the logical choice looking at how old it is, right? I could also see the GPU being the issue but since I've been using it pretty steadily for the past year, that does not seem to make sense. I'm planning on updating that later this fall anyway.

Assuming it is the PSU, I'm thinking about the EVGA SuperNova 850G2. It's probably overkill for my build but I run this stuff for a long time and I want something I can get with prime quickly.
 
Z97 FTW.
I'm suspicious of your motherboard, sir...

You've essentially ruled out your PSU by running furmark.
Your card uses power from the motherboard itself.
 
I would be far more suspicious of drivers. Or some other software issue. Or RAM/motherboard.

And you can probably put 3 650tis on that 850 watt. It's not in the realm of overkill for your system, it's in the realm of insanely stupid overkill unless you plan to get one high end card or two midrange cards. Then it would just be overkill.
 
Insanely stupid? I would think the 1300W version would qualify me for the insanely stupid category. Regardless, maybe this seasonic would fit my build better? Would that have enough headroom to keep adding stuff to my build for the next 5 years like my pc power and cooling one did?

On the motherboard topic, why would just games crash if it's a motherboard issue? Wouldn't prime or furmark trigger a similar crash? I'll post something on the EVGA message boards and see what they think. The kicker is I have until the 11th to return the Mobo to amazon for a full refund and get something else. I just want to rule out the PSU before I do the whole build and install again.

EDIT: Crap, just noticed that seasonic I linked is not available for 2 weeks. Since I want to get something fast, this is the only seasonic in stock and prime: SeaSonic G-750 SSR-750RM. So I save $10 and get 100 less watts and miss out on the 10 year warranty. That's how I got to the 850 SuperNova decision. Or maybe this XFX unit would work?
 
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If you plan on staying in the i5 and x50 range of CPU and GPUs, then a 550 watt power supply is more than sufficient. If you plan on only using one single GPU, 650 watts is more than sufficient for any single CPU and single GPU setup, unless you have an abnormally large amount of hard drives.

Your current setup probably draws no more than 400 watts at most, with overclock. It probably peaks out around 350 watts. That's why that 850 watt qualifies as insanely stupid overkill for your current setup. If you had gotten the 1300 watt... no words can describe how much of a stupid overkill it would have been.
 
Thanks Tsumi, that helps give me confidence that the XFX 650 will suit my needs for the foreseeable future. I'll probably always stick to a single GPU since upgrading to a new one every other year has kept my system feeling fast enough to play the newest games on decent settings.
 
Put a new PSU in my system, loaded up dota2 and got the same crash. Put a new motherboard in the system, just played 1 hour of dota2 and all was good. Guess that's the last EVGA board I buy. thanks for the suggestions guys.
 
The board probably was not intended for use with the 650Ti. Definitely not the end-users fault.
 
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