Problems with FPS/Question about power supply & Video card

Aberdeen · 03-21-2009, 05:07 PM

Hello everyone,

I wanted to just jot down some issues I'm having and see if anyone can pass on some helpful info concerning them. First of all.... when i'm playing World of Warcraft I'm getting horrible FPS ...like 5-25 fps...my latency is around 50 - 70ms which i'm assuming is just fine...but i'm really concerned about fps cos it's really jumpy and choppy graphically. I'm not sure but i think the reason for this is that i'm only using a 400w ps with my radeon x1650, i mention this because someone told me that 400w is not enough when using this ATI graphics card....is this true? can the lower power somehow be affecting if i'm not getting the full graphic potential of my card? yes it's an older card..but i was under the impression that it was decent enough to run some semi-older games. If I need more wattage, then how much more should I get? here are my system specs:

AMD athlon 64 2.0ghz
2g Ram
WinXP SP3
400w PSU
SB Audigy

let me know if you guys need any more info.
Thanks

Tiber Septim · 03-22-2009, 02:02 AM

Hi Aberdeen, welcome to TSF.

It's possible it may be a failing PSU. How old is the computer?
Could you please list more deatils about the PSU, make, model, and number of amps on the +12v rail. All of this information should be on a sticker on the side of the unit itself.

Has this problem just started occuring recently? I don't play WoW myself but I'm fairly sure some of the later patches made some pretty big updates to the graphics, which would explain the lag.

Aberdeen · 03-27-2009, 05:22 PM

the psu is about 2-3 yrs old, it's an Antec 400watt output / model SL400 / 115v/10a - 230v/5a - 60hz/50hz - ATX 12v -

DC output

+5v - max 38A min 1.5A

+12v - max 18A min 0.8A

+3.3v - max 28A min 0.5A

-5v - max 0.5A min 0A

-12v - max 0.8A min 0A

+5vSB - max 2.0A min 0A

not sure what all that means exactly hope it's what you need....like i said i'm wondering if it's enough power for 4 fans, ATI X1650(fan on GPU), and everything else in my system. The laggyness or choppy graphics started with the 2nd expansion "The Burning Crusade" which i believe had some graphical improvements ...same with "Wrath of the Lich King" I'm just wondering if the gpu can suffer from lack of power and cause this choppyness.... let me know if you need any more information about my system

03-21-2009, 05:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
Aberdeen Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 21 OS: Win XP Pro (SP3)	Problems with FPS/Question about power supply & Video card Hello everyone, I wanted to just jot down some issues I'm having and see if anyone can pass on some helpful info concerning them. First of all.... when i'm playing World of Warcraft I'm getting horrible FPS ...like 5-25 fps...my latency is around 50 - 70ms which i'm assuming is just fine...but i'm really concerned about fps cos it's really jumpy and choppy graphically. I'm not sure but i think the reason for this is that i'm only using a 400w ps with my radeon x1650, i mention this because someone told me that 400w is not enough when using this ATI graphics card....is this true? can the lower power somehow be affecting if i'm not getting the full graphic potential of my card? yes it's an older card..but i was under the impression that it was decent enough to run some semi-older games. If I need more wattage, then how much more should I get? here are my system specs: AMD athlon 64 2.0ghz 2g Ram WinXP SP3 400w PSU SB Audigy let me know if you guys need any more info. Thanks

03-22-2009, 02:02 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tiber Septim Asst Manager, Games Team Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Queensland, Australia Posts: 2,877 OS: Fedora 11 / Windows 7 My System Blog Entries: 5	Re: Problems with FPS/Question about power supply & Video card Hi Aberdeen, welcome to TSF. It's possible it may be a failing PSU. How old is the computer? Could you please list more deatils about the PSU, make, model, and number of amps on the +12v rail. All of this information should be on a sticker on the side of the unit itself. Has this problem just started occuring recently? I don't play WoW myself but I'm fairly sure some of the later patches made some pretty big updates to the graphics, which would explain the lag. __________________ First Steps - System Specs - SIW Help TSF beat Cancer and other serious Illness.

03-27-2009, 05:22 PM	#3 (permalink)
Aberdeen Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 21 OS: Win XP Pro (SP3)	Re: Problems with FPS/Question about power supply & Video card the psu is about 2-3 yrs old, it's an Antec 400watt output / model SL400 / 115v/10a - 230v/5a - 60hz/50hz - ATX 12v - DC output +5v - max 38A min 1.5A +12v - max 18A min 0.8A +3.3v - max 28A min 0.5A -5v - max 0.5A min 0A -12v - max 0.8A min 0A +5vSB - max 2.0A min 0A not sure what all that means exactly hope it's what you need....like i said i'm wondering if it's enough power for 4 fans, ATI X1650(fan on GPU), and everything else in my system. The laggyness or choppy graphics started with the 2nd expansion "The Burning Crusade" which i believe had some graphical improvements ...same with "Wrath of the Lich King" I'm just wondering if the gpu can suffer from lack of power and cause this choppyness.... let me know if you need any more information about my system