Is it the PSU?

DragonofthedarknessDragonofthedarkness
edited October 2003 in Hardware
Heres the computers specs; AMD 3000+, 1.5gigs ram, 200GIG HD,ATI Radeon 9700Pro graphics card, DVD drive, CD-WR drive, Soyo KT-400 motherboard, and a none-name brand 420W PSU.
Now for easy stuff like internet this thing normally runs great but for games it runs for a little while then BEEEEEEEEEEEEP hard turnoff. I thought at first maybe I had my bios set wrong and it was turning of at 50 or 55 celcius, but its set at 75 and the temps only going up to the low 50s depending how long the game actually runs. So I'm thinking that maybe the power supply is the problem.
Any Ideas?

Comments

  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    I'm thinking it is in fact the PSU that is your problem. As soon as you start playing those 3D games, your vid card starts sucking up all the available wattage, destabilizing the 5V and 3.3V rails.

    Assuming you connected the power cable directly to the 9700 as directed, am I correct?

    I highly recommend you check out THIS FAQ. While it refers to the K7S5A, the facts apply to all modern ATX mobos.
  • DragonofthedarknessDragonofthedarkness
    edited October 2003
    well the video card may not be directly connected to the PSU, I think the PSU might possibly go to a fan and then to the video card, I'll have to check on that.....at the time I built it I guess I really didn't think that would be a problem
  • DragonofthedarknessDragonofthedarkness
    edited October 2003
    just out of curiosity, what should the values of 3.3V and 5V be between, I just checked mine and my 3.3V is reading at 3.29 and my 5V is reading at 4.89 and my +12V is reading at 12.28
    this should help out a bit, though I cant tell you what those values are when the computer shuts off though, I dont have a program to record those values.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2003
    Those values are ok.

    I think the machine will die when the 5v rail reaches about 4.2, at which point it would normally restart, or shut off.

    Try Motherboard Monitor, it reads, and can record all your temeratures and voltages, so you can see what is going on.

    http://atomnet.co.uk/?p=programs&search=motherboard

    NS
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    The problem with this is, the power fluctuation would occur too quickly for MBM, or any such monitoring software to 'see'. All it takes to fault the comp is one hundredth of a second, then everything goes to hell.

    I've seen this before. A friend of mine was using a PSU (also generic brand), which would post fine voltages on each rail, but every time a heavy 3D game was to run, the system would reboot after a short amount of time.

    After nagging and nagging him to just get a decent PSU, he finally gave in and bought an Antec TruePower 430. This problem never occurred again.

    Dragonofthedarkness: Please read the FAQ I linked in my previous post. Once you do, please post the TCO of the 5V and 3.3V rails. If you are unsure of how to get this information, take a pic of the PSU's label, and attach that to your post.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited October 2003
    The ATX spec calls for +/- 5%, I believe. It sounds like the PS to me, too, although I'd upgrade the cooling too, if I were you.
  • DragonofthedarknessDragonofthedarkness
    edited October 2003
    yeah I was thinking of adding another fan or two to my computer, if I can fina a place for them that won't look completely stupid, also TheSmJ I don't have a digital camera so getting a picture of the lable of my PSU onto the forum might take a while. If its not too difficult maybe you could tell me how to get these values. Also, I noticed that the values of my rails using Motherboard Monitor seemed way off, giving values for 3.3 at 2.93 V. I am currently using SOYO hardware monitor and it's values are more realistic.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited October 2003
    If its not too difficult maybe you could tell me how to get these values.

    Read the FAQ.
Sign In or Register to comment.