x1900xt drawing too many amps

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JohnleMVP

Supreme [H]ardness
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May 20, 2001
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Has any one had a problem with the 1900 series drawing too many amps. Its running on a 500w Antec NeoHE power supply and is causing the power supply to whine/hum. The PSU is 3 rails at like 17amps each and the card is trying to draw up to 27amps. When playing games/anything with 3D the power supply starts whining/humming.
 
Not trying to directly oppose you, but I find it hard to believe that the card is trying to draw 27 amps. Off the 12V rail that would equate to 324 watts just for the card...no way.

Are you sure it's the psu that's humming and not some fan somewhere? Maybe just the fan in the psu spinning up under load?

Also, although that's a nice psu your system may just be too much for it...what's your system setup.
 
This is my brothers machine that has the problem. He has a program that tells him how many amps the video card is pulling. Its not a fan because we checked them all and the noise was coming from the PSU.

His setup is:
X2 3800
Antec NeoHE 500w (1 week old)
Asus A8N-SLI prem
2 x 1024 patriot ram
Sapphire x1900xt
Creative X-FI
3 HD's
 
no no, the card does not need 30 amps. It is recommended that you have a PSU with 30A on the 12V because the card and the rest of the pc can draw that much power.

However, you've got a psu with multiple 12V rails which is also fine. Your mobo draws from one rail and the vid card / hd's / etc. draw from other rails. You really shouldn't run into power problems...maybe you need to rearrange some plugs so that the rails are loaded evenly?
 
No from other post the card needs 1 rail with 30A. It seems that single rail PSU's work better for the card. 2/3 rail cards don't have enough power on a single rail for the card.

the Antec NeoHE 550W has insufficient amperage on any single 12v rail to power this card
Click to expand...
 
JohnleMVP said:
No from other post the card needs 1 rail with 30A. It seems that single rail PSU's work better for the card. 2/3 rail cards don't have enough power on a single rail for the card.
Click to expand...
Yeah Antec PSU's aren't as good as they used to be. I'm using an OCZ Modstream 520W it has the current Amps per rail.

520W: +3.3V(28A), +5V(52A), +12V(28A)

I run an oc'ed 4800+ (3.2GHz) oc'ed x1900XTX and a bunch of drives (6 in total) as well as a 12V pump and a bunch of fans.

No problems whatsoever.
 
JohnleMVP said:
No from other post the card needs 1 rail with 30A. It seems that single rail PSU's work better for the card. 2/3 rail cards don't have enough power on a single rail for the card.
Click to expand...

Thats BS.

The card has around a 120 W power draw, which is 10 Amps at 12 V. The problem is most power supplies over rate their capacity and the NEO series is known for having a weak pwer supply on the 3.3v, to the point they had to redesign them just to work with PCIe high end cards. I can back it up, my 12V rails are rated at 14 and 15 Amps resepctively, and I have no problems with my x1900xtx and an Opteron 175 both overclocked. (Thermaltake TR-2 500)

That rating is simply a reccomendation based on average PSU quality.
 
JohnleMVP said:
This is my brothers machine that has the problem. He has a program that tells him how many amps the video card is pulling. Its not a fan because we checked them all and the noise was coming from the PSU.
Click to expand...

The program does tell you the amps, but it is incorrect according to the guy who wrote the software. Additionally P=IV and V=vcore of the gfx card, not 12V, so like 1.275-1.5v or whatever the vcore is set to.
 
Whine kind of whine/hum?

Some whining is NORMAL and not a problem.

What program?

And no the x1900xt DOES NOT use 30 amps. No the Antec NEOHE is not bad.....it is better quality unit than the previous Antec units (CWT made and HEC made....as Antec doesn't make PSU's they brand them) and is a Seasonic unit built to Antec's spec's. Yes there was a weird compatibility issue with Asus boards...but that has been fixed in the A3 rev. No you can't balance the 3 12v rails on your own the system automatically does it as it is. Yes Crossfire seems to work better in some cases with a single 12v.

And OP you probably should have asked this in the PSU forum since that is what you thought the problem was. I would bet it is more likely to be a incompletely varnished winding vibrating on the main transformer or a coil since windings vibrate under any high load. With PSU's getting more and more powerful the sounds are getting more common.
 
I imagine he's using ATitool. It reports numbers that are simply impossible. Like 35 amps and so on. Some said maybe it's right but it's not just the amps from the 12v rail. But still I have two, and with no nuclear genrator in my backyard, I assume it's false.

Some might say some whine is normal. I put up with it on an infinity board. No more. You make loud whines you get the fuck out. If other equipment doesn't, than I can give a crap what's normal. My econo Crossfire Sparkle does no such thing. Maybe in the electronic device and tested with a meter kind of way, but not like my infinity.
 
texuspete00 said:
Some might say some whine is normal. I put up with it on an infinity board. No more. You make loud whines you get the fuck out. If other equipment doesn't, than I can give a crap what's normal. My econo Crossfire Sparkle does no such thing. Maybe in the electronic device and tested with a meter kind of way, but not like my infinity.
Click to expand...

Well then they got all their windings coated with varnish. The winding/varnish issue is purely for being nice sake and makes no bearing on performance.
 
Spectre,
The whine in this case is not normal, the computer is pretty silent especially with that PSU, but when you start any 3D app it has a medium loud sound that you can clearly hear and its pretty annoying. I would say its not a good sound. Games still run fine, but its an issue of how long the PSU or card will last like this.

ElMoIsEviL,
I understand you have no problems but your PSU is a single rail with 28A. The problem I'm having is with a 3 rail PSU which has about 17A per rail. So its not that the Antec is necessarily bad, it just splits up the total Amps to individual rails, ideally 1 for CPU, 1 for video card, and 1 for mobo, hd, and accessories. I'm wondering if it would work if I used a adapter to connect two 12v rails together and plug it into the video card.

I'm wondering if people who say they don't have a problem with this video card either haven't noticed the sound because their systems are louder or what. At first we didn't notice the sound because of a CPU fan going bad was making a lot of noise, but once that was replaced we clearly heard the PSU whining in 3D games.
 
JohnleMVP said:
Spectre,
The whine in this case is not normal, the computer is pretty silent especially with that PSU, but when you start any 3D app it has a medium loud sound that you can clearly hear and its pretty annoying. I would say its not a good sound. Games still run fine, but its an issue of how long the PSU or card will last like this.
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean that the sound isn't normal. Loose windings can/will do that and aren't a danger.....but hey what do I know.

You have two other common options....one is a coil leaning against something inducing a vibration.....or caps venting. Those two are consistant sounds though.....and don't whine but vibrate and vent in sound respectively.

I'm wondering if it would work if I used a adapter to connect two 12v rails together and plug it into the video card.
Click to expand...

How do you propose to go about doing that?
 
I too have a noise coming from my power supply, a Tagan TG580-U15 (580W, 2xPCIe). The noise only comes in at hgih load running X1900 crossfire and X2 4400+ cpu and can be best described as a 'rattlesnake' noise! However, I know the reason...it had a nut loose from the day I bought it, something is loose inside and is vibrating. It's on my to do list to replace when I open it up to change the +20A indicator LED.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the power demand of these high end video cards, probably caused by the manufacturers trying to make it simple for the consumer. Not everyone knows, or can be expected to know, the power consumption of each individual component. So they say a PSU capable of 30A or more on +12V to cover the card and the other components in the system. It gets messy with PSU's that have that 30A split between rails, and if the components connected to each rail exceed the power that rail is designed for, then problems occur like I had a while ago. Think your power demands and power rails out carefully, or go with a single rail PSU.

Regarding the power demand of the X1900, here's two traces of a 3DMark06 run with X1900's in crossfire (these are overclocked so the demand is higher than normal):

X1900_temps_01.gif


According to RivaTuner, each core is drawing 41A, but at a core voltage of 1.55V (these figures may be slightly out, I had the core voltage set to 1.525V with ATITool, but it's negliable). So that means the cores max power demand is approx 63.5W, but being fed +12V means a current demand of 5.3A from the PSU. That's only the core though, so add in the power required for the memory IC's and the other circuity and you'll be around the 10A like BBA said.
 
I'm running my X1900XT on my 550W Neo HE (it has the three 12v rails at 18A each) with ZERO PROBLEMS and it's even overclocked to 725/1670 @ 1.5v.
 
Check my signature,

Operton165@ 2.8ghz
MSI Neo Platinum SLI
X1900XT @ 700/1600
16X DVD Writer
16X DVD Writer
400gb hard drives RAID 0
Thermaltake BigWater 745 3 x 120mm Radiator with Fans.
Dual Neon Lights 12"
2 Gig PC4000 OCZ Platinum @ 500mhz
Sunbeam Fan Controller.

All that on Ultra Xfinity Flex Force 500Watts Power supply :D
 
JohnleMVP said:
With a cable like this
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-121-003-06.JPG
Click to expand...

That cable doesn't neccesarily combine 2 12v rails. It takes 2 molex's which are on a 12v or 2 and combines them to feed the 6pin PCI-E adapter.

A typical 3/12v EPS PSU looks like this:

EPS12V 6.1.1 12V Power Rail Configuration

There are two types of 12V rail configurations for systems: 'Common plane' and "Split plane' processor power delivery. The 'commob plane' system has both processors powered from a single 12V rail (+12V1) from the power supply. The 'split plane' system has both processors powered by seperate 12V rails (+12V1 and +12V2) one dedicated to each processor. The system in both cases, has an additional 12V rail to power the rest of the baseboard +12V loads and dc/dc converters. +12V1, +12V2 and +12V3 should not be connected together on the baseboard to ensure that 240VA protection circuits in the power supply operate properly

Table 6: 12V Rail Summary
........................................................................................................................................................................................
Common Plane System........................................................Split Plane System
+12V1........Processors.........................................................+12V1........Processor 1
+12V2........Baseboard components other than processors.......+12V2........Processor 2
+12V3........Drives and peripherals..........................................+12V3........Baseboards and components other than processors
...........................................................................................+12V4........Drives and peripherals
Click to expand...

The NEoHE does this instead:

The power supply boasts three 12V rails, each supporting up to a 16A load. The way the rails are split up is unlike anything I've ever seen before. If you look at the traces on the inside of the modular interface, you can see that the first two connectors use 12V3 for 12V and the other two use 12V1 while 12V2 goes to the CPU like almost any other power supply. As hokey as this may seem, it's a good idea if you know what you're doing. If you hook two PCI-e cards up to 12V3 and it's too much for the 16A rail, swap out the second PCI-e card with a hard drive or something to balance the load out. The total output is still only 32A across all three rails, so the way I look at it is just give me two bigger 12V rails and don't make me play musical connectors if I find one of my rails may be getting overloaded. I dunno. Seems like a gimmick to me.
Click to expand...
http://www.jonnyguru.com/PSU/NeoHE430/

There is a reason I was asking about how you planned ot do this......still it shouldn't make a lick of difference.
 
So just get a single rail PSU like the OCZ 520 that myself and everyone else is running and your problems will be solved.
 
I have a 420W enermax noisetaker PS, with 18A on each of two 12V rails, and it handels my system just fine.

And the PS is nice and quiet ;)

I can have all the following going at once with no problems
( playing high intensity game, all cd drives spinning, all HD spinning, all external stuff plugged in etc..)

Quite some time ago, I tested the power draw using this Meter going into my PC's AC outlet, and i was well under the 420W.
(the exact number escapes me right now as im at work and its on my home pc)

All the stuff drawing power in my system (nothing overclocked)
Asus A8N32-SLI-Deluxe
AMD X2 4200
2GB Corsair Ram
Ati 1900xt Vidcard
3 Seagate 7200 SATA2 Harddrives
3 DVD burners
External USB DVD Burner,
External Firewire Harddrive,
USB Flash drives.
Three, 80mm case Fans.
G15Keyboard with LCD

So you dont really need such a large PS, just a well built one.
 
JohnleMVP said:
No from other post the card needs 1 rail with 30A. It seems that single rail PSU's work better for the card. 2/3 rail cards don't have enough power on a single rail for the card.
Click to expand...
This has been discussed in multiple threads. In one, another extremely helpful poster linked to an article that describes the PSU problem in detail and a workaround for those using multiple 12v rail PSUs with amperage rated at less than that recommended on a single rail for the x1900xtx. You can use a PCIe to 4-pin adapter to split the load to two 12v rails, and that seems to fix this problem according to the article below. These have a PCIe connector on one end and two 4 pin molex connectors on the other, and Newegg has them.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1932947,00.asp
 
batai37 said:
This has been discussed in multiple threads. In one, another extremely helpful poster linked to an article that describes the PSU problem in detail and a workaround for those using multiple 12v rail PSUs with amperage rated at less than that recommended on a single rail for the x1900xtx. You can use a PCIe to 4-pin adapter to split the load to two 12v rails, and that seems to fix this problem according to the article below. These have a PCIe connector on one end and two 4 pin molex connectors on the other, and Newegg has them.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1932947,00.asp
Click to expand...


you're telling me a x1900xt uses 360 watts? :rolleyes: And btw, the article says a 7800gtx 512 uses 132 watts... which is wrong.
 
Update: Bought a new PSU, Enermax Liberty 620w and the power supply is not making any sounds. Funny though the video card makes an electric noise now, but its not nearly as loud as the NeoHE's noise and is something we can live with. Probably not something you'd notice with the stock HSF but with the KuFormula VF1 on low its noticable.
 
On your NeoHE, which plugs on the back of the PSU are you using? The two on the left (looking into the sockets) are on one shared rail, and the three on the right are another. The general suggestion is to keep them as balanced as possible, meaning give your Radeon its own rail, and all your drives on the other one.
Your hum might be because one rail is loaded to its max, while the other is completely empty.

There's an illustration on this page.

My strong suggestion is to keep your video plugged into the far left, and any fan controllers or other low-draw devices next to it. That way your drives automatically get their own rail.
 
Running x1900xt on an antec truepower II without problems here (two 18 amp rails.) To add to the noise discussion, don't rule out the motherboard automatically. Last year when I got a new motherboard I noticed a high-pitched whine from what I believe were the power reg. components. Just about everything else was the same as before except that NF2 board. It was not very loud, just slightly annoying. Not everybody could hear it since it was such a high frequency.
 
WHAT is everyone talking about here?

Noise from a transformer or filter choke winding, although irritating, is the cause.

The noise has nothing to do with the individual 12v rails. The 12v windings basically connect to seperate voltage regulator circuits which feed the seperate rails. As long as any one rail can provide 10 amps, your going to be fine with a single X1900xt/x

Current capacity is one thing, noise is another. If it makes noise, it's bad, replace it.
Has nothing to do with current, or you would not be able to play 3D apps at all.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
you're telling me a x1900xt uses 360 watts? :rolleyes: And btw, the article says a 7800gtx 512 uses 132 watts... which is wrong.
Click to expand...
I'm not telling you anything other than the info I linked to, which I found a lot more useful than your terse (and unsupported) response. I'm not an EE or an expert on PSUs, what I know has been the result of research and asking questions of people more knowledgeable than I.

Problems with multiple 12v rail PSUs have been reported by many users, but others report no problems. The choice seems to boil down to this: if someone has PSU problems with this card: either use a PSU with a single massive 12v rail with a minimum of 30a (or 38a for a Crossfire config), or use a PCIe 6 pin to 4 pin adapter on multiple 12v rail PSUs to distribute the load to another rail to avoid problems. If you differ with this assessment, I'd like to see your informed and supported response explaining exactly why.
 
batai37 said:
I'm not telling you anything other than the info I linked to, which I found a lot more useful than your terse (and unsupported) response. I'm not an EE or an expert on PSUs, what I know has been the result of research and asking questions of people more knowledgeable than I.

Problems with multiple 12v rail PSUs have been reported by many users, but others report no problems. The choice seems to boil down to this: if someone has PSU problems with this card: either use a PSU with a single massive 12v rail with a minimum of 30a (or 38a for a Crossfire config), or use a PCIe 6 pin to 4 pin adapter on multiple 12v rail PSUs to distribute the load to another rail to avoid problems. If you differ with this assessment, I'd like to see your informed and supported response explaining exactly why.
Click to expand...


Well, I can tell you that my buddy is running a x1900xtx and pentium D 830 at 3.4GHz on a fsp psu w/ dual 16 amp rails. And it's stable as possible. Also:
power.gif


For comparison, the Radeon X1900 XTX is almost the same load on the graphical slot, but it sucks in as much as 72W from the external +12V line!
Click to expand...

That's 6 amps.

Noise from a transformer or filter choke winding, although irritating, is the cause.

The noise has nothing to do with the individual 12v rails. The 12v windings basically connect to seperate voltage regulator circuits which feed the seperate rails. As long as any one rail can provide 10 amps, your going to be fine with a single X1900xt/x

Current capacity is one thing, noise is another. If it makes noise, it's bad, replace it.
Has nothing to do with current, or you would not be able to play 3D apps at all.
Click to expand...

QFT
 
BBA said:
If it makes noise, it's bad, replace it.
Click to expand...

If by bad you mean annoying....then yes.
If by bad you mean a danger.....then no.
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
lol my cars peaks at like 38A in ATI tool :p 5.5A at idle and like 38 full load oc'd
Click to expand...


That's amperage at 1.5V, not at 12V. The way it works is the wattage. If it draws 38A at 1.5V it's using 57 Watts. For a 12V supply it would only have to supply a little under 5 Amps.
 
BBA said:
That's amperage at 1.5V, not at 12V. The way it works is the wattage. If it draws 38A at 1.5V it's using 57 Watts. For a 12V supply it would only have to supply a little under 5 Amps.
Click to expand...

Yea I remember physics class =p the card with the stock fan at 100% oc'd pulled 38A true though its 38A @ 1.5V still funny to see :p
 
annaconda said:
Check my signature,

Operton165@ 2.8ghz
MSI Neo Platinum SLI
X1900XT @ 700/1600
16X DVD Writer
16X DVD Writer
400gb hard drives RAID 0
Thermaltake BigWater 745 3 x 120mm Radiator with Fans.
Dual Neon Lights 12"
2 Gig PC4000 OCZ Platinum @ 500mhz
Sunbeam Fan Controller.

All that on Ultra Xfinity Flex Force 500Watts Power supply :D
Click to expand...
nice i have th 600 w version but i dopnt run anyhting demanding
 
Here they list the total system power consumption for dual X1900 XTXs underload as 440.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/radeon-x1900/index.x?pg=13

Since Crossfire runs Async dual XTX would = overclocking your master to XTX level and pairing it with a XTX slave, or a XT flashed to XTX clocks. Of course ATi Tool could access both cards unlike the CCC and set both clocks as desired.

I can run my CPU at 2.84 with all in my sig and two X1900s at 711|810 on just a PC P&C 510 SLi PSU.
 
Blacklash said:
Here they list the total system power consumption for dual X1900 XTXs underload as 440.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/radeon-x1900/index.x?pg=13

Since Crossfire runs Async dual XTX would = overclocking your master to XTX level and pairing it with a XTX slave, or a XT flashed to XTX clocks. Of course ATi Tool could access both cards unlike the CCC and set both clocks as desired.

I can run my CPU at 2.84 with all in my sig and two X1900s at 711|810 on just a PC P&C 510 SLi PSU.
Click to expand...

They measure it at the wall, so they don't factor in psu inefficiency.
 
I must admit it sounds ridiculous that your card should draw 30 amps. At 12 volt. Blimey. Thats like, 360 watts. The card would melt. I run a PowerColor X1900XT on a system with a Antec SmartPower 450w, which is rated for 34A on the combined 12v rail. And I have no problems what so ever. In fact, my total system power draw is LESS than 360w when I game. That includes CPU, mobo, drives, sound card etc.

In fact I thought my psu was broken because the external fan never spun up. Untill one night were I checked it with a flash light after having played Oblivion for 3 hours. Oh, it did spin. But not much. The thing was only lukewarm, and that it self speaks volumes about the load that was put on the system.

In cact I just noticed in my manual that it recommends a 500w psu with 36a for a Crossfire setup. So 30a is just out in the woods.
 
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