Kjølen

Greetings!

Recently (July) I bought a new ASUS Geforce GTX 280 for my system, hoping to play all of my games with DirectX 10 capabilities an the highest settings. However, once it was installed, everything just lost its mind.

Video - VLC would start producing artifacts after about 15 minutes of video watching. Even after closing the window, the cursor was artifacted and only rebooting would fix the issue.
F.E.A.R. - Plays fine for 10 minutes then suddenly goes into "limp mode" where it becomes unplayable until I restart the game.
BioShock - Won't even load a new or saved game without freezing on the load screen. Have to force the game to quit.
Empire at War - Plays for a few minutes then the entire system locks up completely.
Unreal Tournament 3, American McGee's Alice, Half-Life - All work fine.

Now, I doubt this is a heating issue on the GPU's behalf because I set the fan speed manually up to 100% and watched the temperatures stay at roughly 50 degrees Celsius, even while playing F.E.A.R. I've also waited until September for NVIDIA to come out with new drivers. Yes, I used Driver Cleaner and properly reinstalled and uninstalled the card many, many times. Eventually, I ended up switching back to my old Geforce 7950GX2, which had worked fine before. But now, after about 30 minutes of F.E.A.R., it goes back into limp mode again, (though noticeably less dramatic. Age of Empires II occasionally crashes the system, too.

I can see that this might be a heating issue on the PCB since my Arctic Freezer 7 blows air directly at the PCI-Express slots.

Might this be a problem with compatibility with the rest of the system?

Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 3.0GHz
6GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 1000MHz (G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 800, OCZ 2x2GB DDR2 1000, 5-5-5-15-2T)
500GB SATA hard drive
ASUS P5N-D SLI Motherboard
Rosewill 750W PSU with four +12V rails (18mA per rail).

wrench97

"Rosewill 750W PSU with four +12V rails (18mA per rail)."
See if you can borrow a quality PSU to try.
Seasonic - any model
Corsair - any model
Thermaltake - "Toughpower" series only
Coolermaster - "Real Power Pro" series only
PC Power & Cooling - any model
Silverstone - any model

Kjølen

My PSU is good quality. I never buy power supplies before checking an overwhelming amount of positive reviews in comparison to any negative reviews. Power supplies are the most volatile part in my opinion, so I never buy one unless I'm sure that it's good. Besides, I've been using this PSU since before I built this entire computer back in April-ish. These problems only started after I put in the GTX 280.

Nevertheless, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try another PSU, if I had one handy.

wrench97

The GTX280 needs more then 18 amps per rail the card can use up to 32 amps and multi rails never add together to make the same power as a single large rail unit. The Antec Quatro 850w had problems with that. Rosewill doesn't make it and their vendors change regularly so who knows who really did make it.

Kjølen

Well, roughly 80% of all high end PSU's are multi-railed, and no other GTX 280 owner seems to have this problem. And the amperage WILL work across multiple rails with up to 30% losses, of course. And that means I still have 70% of 72mA total current, which is roughly 50mA. Also, since my PSU leads are labeled by rail, be certain that I've hooked up the card with every combination of single or multiple rail, with a 6-pin to 8-pin converter, a TWO 6-pin to one 8-pin converter, some Molex to 6-pin converters, and all sorts of fun times.

And when you said the GTX 280 uses up to 32mA of current, did you actually mean that it can use that much or that it requires that much on the PSU? Because the amperage requirements also take into account the amperage usage of the total system and not just the card.

wrench97

ok you have it all covered then

dai

very few power supplies with multiple rails allow unused amps to be used on another rail
that's why i prefer the single rails
a gtx 280 =850w+ psu

magnethead

I agree with the rest. Due to the EPS12V regulations, the best power supplies are the ones with 1 or 2 rails, where one high-amp rail supports everything, or 2 medium amp rails are split so one covers the system and one is dedicated for graphics.

The 32 amps (A, not mA, thats milliamps) figure is just for the card. Standard PCIe regulation is 75 watts through board plus up to 237 watts through the 6/8 pin connectors. However, the GTX series have bumped this amount up to 75 watts through the board and 309 watts through the 6/8 pin connectors.

The 9800GTX (what I have) is rated with an amperage pull of 28 amps (75 board/261 aux). I'm on a thermaltake toughpower 650 (barely scratching by) and have confirmed the amperage pull through the aux via ammeter.

Kjølen

Well if this is true, I'm right pissed. I bough that PSU with this build in mind.

magnethead

what I would try, first, is to see how it does with what you have. Try under-clocking the GPU through ntune and see if it does any better by not being a power hog.

Also, if you have a digital multi meter, stick that in a pair of yellow/black wires on the 6/8 pin dongle. It should read 12 volts DC +- EPS tolerance of 5% (0.6 volt swing). So 11.4 to 12.6, with 11.6 to 12.4 being preferred if the PSUs internal protection system is working.

Kjølen

Unfortunately, I do not have a multimeter. And I am, of course reluctant to go out and buy a power supply until I know for a fact that this is the problem. It's a conundrum. Maybe a multimeter would be worth the investment anyway.

Kjølen

Hello again!

Would one of these possibly help solve my problem?
http://www.fspgroupusa.com/PC_RETAIL...BOOSTERX3.html
http://www.shopfsp.com/boosterx-5/p/417.html
They latter one DOES have four +12V rails, but since they're made for SLI that shouldn't cause more problems, should it? Otherwise, if you can go easy on my wallet, I'm open to all-new PSU suggestions. I'm panning on going SLI with my GTX 280 eventually.

wrench97

Those booster rarely work correctly and when they do they dump a lot of heat in the front of the case right on top of the HD.

magnethead

if you want to SLI an GTX280, her'e the window you're looking at. It's scary...i think thet might be why few have done it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139007

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153055

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256041

Kjølen

Well, they're no where near my HDD bays but I understand what you mean. I'm running out of options here. Should I just get a 1000W Silverstone PSU with 80A on a single +12V rail be done with it? ($169)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256043

magnethead

that's a heck of a unit for the price.

wrench97

Here's the guru review of it it's a decent unit> http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story&reid=112

Kjølen

Alright, thanks, I was wondering, since "Silverstone" was a new name for me, yet it consistently gets good reviews.

On a more GPU related note (which is what this forum is supposed to be about), will my GTX 280 support a 2560x1600 monitor AND a 1600x1200 monitor? If I add another GTX 280 down the line in SLI for gaming performance, will it work? Or would it just be better to get a cheap 128MB PCI (Or PCI-Express 1x) card for the 1600x1200 and let the GTX 280(s) do the 2560x1600?

Kjølen

Hey, everyone, again.
Well, I bough the 1000W Silverstone power supply (One +12V rail, 80A) as I posted above and reinstalled the GTX 280 with the latest November drivers for Vista 64 from NVIDIA's website. No change, whatsoever. FEAR still goes into limp mode, BioShock still refuses to load a game, new or otherwise. I haven't tested the other games, yet, but the symptoms have been the same thus far. Obviously, something is not playing well with the card. Vista 64 maybe? The motherboard, RAM, sound card?

wrench97

Try running it on the just the 2gig of Gskill and then just he OCZ see if there is any difference.