Looking into a new video card

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:10 pm

Next question: power supply?

How old? How many Watts? Manufacturer?

Do you have vsync disabled by default?

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:12 pm

Not sure that it's a monitor problem. My optiquest v75 is almost 9 years old. It didn't give any problems, nor did the Sony 20 inch that I hooked up for a few weeks.

Have you adjusted your settings ingames to reflect the new card?

And is your motherboard set up to buffer your agp card with system RAM?

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:33 pm

Monitor, printer, CPU, and speakers? Might be drawing too much for the UPS and it can't supply everything. Try only running the CPU thru the UPS.

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:49 pm

300W power supply
4 or so years old
Altec (I think)
Don't know about vsync

Monitor is a Samsung 713n which is only a year and a half old.
The game autodetected the video card and reran its video tests and passed it. As far as I understand the system is setup to share RAM but I am not completely sure. This video card does have half the built in RAM as my last card.

The power load on my UPS at rest runs between 40% and 50%. I will admit the power level is up by about 10% by this card alone. I have recieved no warnings about power level being too high from my UPS. Mine you that my printer is turned off most of the time, monitor takes nearly no power by itself, and the speakers are only a 4.1 system from nearly 10 years ago. When playing a high end game the highest power level I have seen was 70%.

MegaDeath70 · Post by **MegaDeath70** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:11 pm

What card are we talking? 6 series? If so you need atleast a minimum 350watt PSU. 400 would prolly be best.

Im running a 8800GTS and run a 500watt PSU with no problems.

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:09 pm

It sounds like you might not have enough juice.

Or it also could be that your power supply doesn't give enough current on one of the lines going to your video card. Hmm...

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:29 pm

Ok then, so which would be the best solution or is there a better buy than these?

APEVIA ATX-CW500WP4 ATX 500W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148027
HIPRO TOP-500P5 ATX V2.01 500W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817174023

If memory is correct my case is an ATX case which would mean I have to keep with the ATX power supplies to power my system. Both of those above are weekend specials at what I think are reasonable costs. What are your opinions?

BTW, when I was talking about the UPS it was in reference to my battery backup which is refered to as UPS on my computers software. As for my current power supply I wouldn't be surprised if its 300W. I can't see the lable on my unit due to the way its mounted in the case (vertically) with a shelf covering the power supply.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 3:48 am

I agree that a 300W is pretty light for a modern gaming rig, but his machine is an older one and he doesn't have it loaded down with a bunch of drives. I'd like to make sure that's the problem before having him spend more money on it.

TW, can you buy one locally so you can return it if it doesn't resolve your problem? Or, you could just look at it as another piece of your piece-by-piece upgrade...

Personally, I have a nearly 3-year-old AMD 3000 rig with a 6800 and a 400W PSU. Which, AFAIK, I've not come near stressing.

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:42 am

I can consider it as a piece-by-piece upgrade since I will be buying a new case for the next system.

Here is whats in my rig:
1 DVD Rom
1 Burn Drive
1 2.5 Inch Floppy
1 200 gig Hard Drive
1 Digifire Sound Card
1 ATI TV Turner Card
1 Geforce 6600 GT
1 Network Card

AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 1.67 Ghz
Basic CPU fan
1 GB of RAM, made up of 2 Kingston 512 DDR sticks
MSI K7N2

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:27 am

Hmm... seems like you could be right on the edge in terms of juice available.

Here's another thought: have you tried using a different power connection to the video card than the one you are currently using?

Try turning down settings on the games: texture details, shaders (if there is an option), world detail settings, etc.

Are you experiencing any jerkiness or stuttering in all of your games? Which ones are not affected in this way?

Could you run something like 3dmark on the system to see what kinds of numbers you get?

You have a faster processor, and slightly less RAM than I did when I owned the card. Just trying to nail down what the issue is. I am leaning on the side that it's a software issue, or that it is an issue with the power supply. I've seen power supplies have problems on only one set of leads and not the others. And I've seen power supplies that had just become too old and unstable, and they produced quite a bit of rippling on certain leads (but others were okay). This new card does draw quite a bit of power, so maybe your power supply is seeing a very high load and it's showing.

If you get a new power supply, a 400 or 450 watt one should do just fine with your setup. Unless you plan on running a lot more stuff from it than you currently have listed.

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:10 pm

I am heading home for the weekend. My dad has an old case with an above average powersupply in it. I plan on taking a look at it and if its high enough I plan on claiming it as my own and installing it into my current rig. This way I can see if power is the problem or not without spending a dime. Still doing research into a new computer system on the side because that will have to happen down the road.

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:11 pm

I have an ASUS A7V 266 E motherboard laying around. For some reason it never could recognize harddrives larger than 120 GB though. Still haven't figured that one out. BIOS is up to date and all that. But your motherboard should be up to the task of this card.

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:29 am

If I remember correctly Windows XP can only support up to 120 Gig partitions on hard drives. I have this problem on my current system with a 200 gig HD. But at the time of the partitioning I didn't know of that limit. There is nothing wrong with the motherboard, it is XP thats causing the problem to my understanding.

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:19 pm

I have one drive that is 160Gb, but after formatting there's only about 124-28Gb of available space because of the FAT. Windows XP is more than capable of handling partitions of 120Gb.

How's that PSU test coming?

TimberWolf · Post by **TimberWolf** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 10:26 pm

I am currently at my parents place and away from my computer, doing work on my laptop. I just took the 430W power supply out of an old case and will install that into my computer when I get back to the dorm. With any luck that will fix the problem if its power related. If not I will be bringing back my old video card just in case.