Another: Enough power?

[GTengineer]

Hey all,

I just rebuilt my water loop so I could have everything inside the case. Before I had my water pump connected straight to the wall independent of PSU.

However ever since I got a MCP355 I cannot overclock even to 3GHz without a BSOD. My temps idle are 31C oh the highest core and low 20C for coldest core. So my question is... am I putting too much strain on my PSU? I cannot think of anything else that could possible be causing this problem. I have not changed anything in my system. My PSU is a Thermaltake Purepower 600W (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153077)

My hardware is in my sig but just to recap this is what I am running:

Asus P5k Premium (P35 chipset)
5 x HDD (4 SATA + 1 IDE)
1 x CD/DVD-RW
4 x 2GB DDR2 GSKILL
5 x 120mm fan
1 x MCP355 water pump
1 x 230mm fan
1 x 8800GT (slight factory overclock)
2 x small PWM fans

[phil178821]

Hey all,

I just rebuilt my water loop so I could have everything inside the case. Before I had my water pump connected straight to the wall independent of PSU.

However ever since I got a MCP355 I cannot overclock even to 3GHz without a BSOD. My temps idle are 31C oh the highest core and low 20C for coldest core. So my question is... am I putting too much strain on my PSU? I cannot think of anything else that could possible be causing this problem. I have not changed anything in my system. My PSU is a Thermaltake Purepower 600W (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153077)

My hardware is in my sig but just to recap this is what I am running:

Asus P5k Premium (P35 chipset)
5 x HDD
1 x CD/DVD-RW
4 x 2GB DDR2 GSKILL
5 x 120mm fan
1 x MCP355 water pump
1 x 230mm fan
1 x 8800GT (slight factory overclock)
2 x small PWM fans



i am definitely no expert in this, but I don't think its too much on your psu.

[GTengineer]

I know these calculators are not very trusted but when I input my hardware it requires 616-626 W and that is for stock 2.4GHz. But I do not have a good feel of real life power consumption numbers either.

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

[ScottinIndy]

I believe you are likely starved for power on your 12v rails. So IMO you likely do need another PSU with more amperage on the 12v rail/rails.

[wingman99]

Do you have a digital volt meter if you do measure your 12v rails under full load.:beer:

Link :http://cgi.ebay.com/VOLT-METER-MULTIMETER-AMPS-AC-DC-DIGITAL-VOLTMETER-OHM-_W0QQitemZ170265996020QQcmdZViewItem


LINK: http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf
Table 2. DC Output Voltage Regulation
Output Range Min. Nom. Max. Unit
+12V1DC (1) ±5% +11.40 +12.00 +12.60 Volts
+12V2DC (3) ±5% +11.40 +12.00 +12.60 Volts
+5VDC ±5% +4.75 +5.00 +5.25 Volts
+3.3VDC (2) ±5% +3.14 +3.30 +3.47 Volts
-12VDC ±10% -10.80 -12.00 -13.20 Volts
+5VSB ±5% +4.75 +5.00 +5.25 Volts

[GTengineer]

Do you have a digital volt meter if you do measure your 12v rails under full load.:beer:

Link :http://cgi.ebay.com/VOLT-METER-MULTIMETER-AMPS-AC-DC-DIGITAL-VOLTMETER-OHM-_W0QQitemZ170265996020QQcmdZViewItem


LINK: http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf
Table 2. DC Output Voltage Regulation
Output Range Min. Nom. Max. Unit
+12V1DC (1) ±5% +11.40 +12.00 +12.60 Volts
+12V2DC (3) ±5% +11.40 +12.00 +12.60 Volts
+5VDC ±5% +4.75 +5.00 +5.25 Volts
+3.3VDC (2) ±5% +3.14 +3.30 +3.47 Volts
-12VDC ±10% -10.80 -12.00 -13.20 Volts
+5VSB ±5% +4.75 +5.00 +5.25 Volts

lol thats the actual voltmeter I have. I'll try that tonight. Cheers

[petteyg359]

I know these calculators are not very trusted but when I input my hardware it requires 616-626 W and that is for stock 2.4GHz. But I do not have a good feel of real life power consumption numbers either.

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

What exactly did you enter? I just put in the stuff you listed in OP, and assuming your CPU voltage is 1.5, it gives me 489W (33.9A/12.1A/6.5A on 12V/5V/3.3V). Heck, I ran your hardware minus the water cooling, but with Crossfire 3870s, on my HX520 with no problems.

[GTengineer]

What exactly did you enter? I just put in the stuff you listed in OP, and assuming your CPU voltage is 1.5, it gives me 489W (33.9A/12.1A/6.5A on 12V/5V/3.3V). Heck, I ran your hardware minus the water cooling, but with Crossfire 3870s, on my HX520 with no problems.

yes you are right I re-ran it and got what you got. I originally selected 4 socket mistakenly for quad core.

I managed to get it to 3.6GHz but now requires more vcore than before just to boot and it is not even prime stable. The system also seems to be running much slower, booting, etc.

[ScottinIndy]

What exactly did you enter? I just put in the stuff you listed in OP, and assuming your CPU voltage is 1.5, it gives me 489W (33.9A/12.1A/6.5A on 12V/5V/3.3V). Heck, I ran your hardware minus the water cooling, but with Crossfire 3870s, on my HX520 with no problems.

Unless the specs are wrong on Newegg's website his PSU only supplies a listed total of 29 amps on the 12v rail, The Corsair HX520 has a listed 54 amps available for the 12v rail. That is why I think while at first glance he has enough wattage it appears he is lacking as far as 12v amperage goes.

[petteyg359]

And there's your answer, GTengineer. Find something with more watts on 12V. The one you've got now has more amps on 5V and 3.3V than 12V. That's good for lots of drives (a server), not good for gaming video cards. Find something with a beefier 12V line.

Corsair TX650 is $80 after $20 MIR... Will give you 52A on 12V, and is single rail. Antec EA650 is around the same price, but is multi-rail.

[phil178821]

And there's your answer, GTengineer. Find something with more watts on 12V. The one you've got now has more amps on 5V and 3.3V than 12V. That's good for lots of drives (a server), not good for gaming video cards. Find something with a beefier 12V line.

Corsair TX650 is $80 after $20 MIR... Will give you 52A on 12V, and is single rail. Antec EA650 is around the same price, but is multi-rail.

while his psu does seem unbalanced, 29amps isnt enough for an 8800GT? or do you not combine the two rails into one total?

[GTengineer]

ok guys

I did notice the 29A on the 12V being much lower than "better" PSUs out there but like I said I dont have a good feel for these numbers. However I have been putting 2 and 2 together and in addition to your comments I am starting to realize that a lot of the BSOD I was getting long ago since I added my 8800GT and 4 RAID drives may have been a result of this very same weak PSU. I kept believeing these BSODs were due to crappy GPU Vista drivers or some problem with my RAID controller.

In any case, I went ahead and ordered a Corsair 850TX. I know it is overkill but it was only $20 more than the 750TX and will future-proof me for my next upgrade cycle.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009 $120 after MIR and free shipping
+3.3V@30A, +5V30A, +12V@70A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3A

Thanks for all the help and I will report back when I put it in there.

[wingman99]

lol thats the actual voltmeter I have. I'll try that tonight. CheersDid you do a votage load test with your voltmeter.


It will tell you 100% garneted if your wasting your money you could cancel the order.

[GTengineer]

Did you do a votage load test with your voltmeter.

no wingman I realized I still have it at my old place in Atlanta unfortunately, and I recently moved so I didn't get a chance to test it.

[petteyg359]

while his psu does seem unbalanced, 29amps isnt enough for an 8800GT? or do you not combine the two rails into one total?

I don't know whether the Thermaltake multiple rails are "true" multiple rails or not. In "real" multi-rail PSUs, the rails are completely separate, and different connectors are on different rails. Generally the PCIE plugs would get a rail to themselves. This can be bad in some cases, either due to the rail not having enough amperage, or having too much, and then that available power is lost (each rail has it's own limit, and you can't transfer the remaining power to the other rail). Regardless of that, the video card isn't the only device using power. There's also the CPU, drives, fans, etc. With a calculated draw of 33.9A at 85% system load, 29A won't cut it. Whether those 29A are on separate 14A/15A rails or a single 29A rail doesn't matter, in this case.

Did you do a votage load test with your voltmeter. It will tell you 100% garneted if your wasting your money you could cancel the order.

He needs more amps on 12V, regardless. That 33.9A figure is at just 85% system load.

[wingman99]

He needs more amps on 12V, regardless. That 33.9A figure is at just 85% system load.Checking with a DVM is 100% accurate if your capable of using one correctly 33.9A sounds like a good estimation but testing will show any AMP drop under full load by visualizing the voltage, Ohm's law

[petteyg359]

Power usage of devices is well documented, and calculators don't lie. A PurePower 600 is simply incapable of powering such a system, even below full load. No voltage meter is going to change that.

[GTengineer]

FOLLOW UP:

Well, I installed the new Corsair 850TX. I also found out that one of my 2GB GSKILL is bad and giving out errors. It is very strange though because I ran prime95 (lots of RAM) just a few days before ordering the new PSU and got no errors on my RAM. But anyway a lot of my main problems are solved after installing the new PSU and removing the faulty RAM. Games have not crashed a single time since then.

However, even at 3.6GHz my system is still getting BSOD under prime95 (small FFT) after only a few minutes. It will say "system halted ....blah .... hardware error" and then switches to another blue screen error. I am close to not really caring since the system is running rock solid in all the apps and games that I use like it has not before. But if anyone has any idea what could be causing this "system halt" I would gladly try it out.

Cheers

[petteyg359]

Have you tried memtest86+ yet? If one stick of RAM went bad, another might've followed.

[RollingThunder]

Have you tried memtest86+ yet? If one stick of RAM went bad, another might've followed.

Either that or the overclock needs to be re-tweaked for timings and/or voltage. The "hardware error - system halted" is the clue. Time to go back to the basics.

[GTengineer]

Yes I tested with memtest86+ with a bootup CD. I tested each stick at a time at 800MHz and 1000MHz and isolated the problem to one specific stick. The machine does not crash anymore when stressing RAM or in games. It only crashes when running CPU only stress (Prime95 small FFT). Also the 2 sticks of RAM I have in there now (good ones) are not even being overclocked since at 3.6GHz they run at stock 1000MHz (4/5 multiplier) at 5-5-5-15 and default voltage of 2.0V.

EDIT: I changed my sig to avoid confusion since I am running currently at 3.6GHz and RAM is not oc'ed.

[wingman99]

Sorry to here your PSU is not the problem but i figured that.

Have you tried running your cpu stock might have degraded.

[GTengineer]

Sorry to here your PSU is not the problem but i figured that.

Have you tried running your cpu stock might have degraded.

Wingman, running stock causes no problem. But I doubt it is degradation as it was running just fine a few weeks before I put everything together in the new case with new water cooling loop. Anyway no big deal, Im not going to worry about it since it is actually running A LOT more stable than before (ie. games where I used to get constant crashing). :beer: