x800xl and Far Cry, disasterous!

'AAvK' wrote, in part:
| Phil, power I am using, 375 watts plus 20% adds up to exactly the same as
my
| PSu is rated, 450 watts.
_____

Looking back over your posts, it sounds like a heat problem, but where? If
the power supply is involved, then poor air circulation is possibly the
culprit, otherwise the power supply might just be poorly built. Certainly
450 Watts is more than sufficient.

One easy diagnostic tool is MotherBoard Monitor 5.
It is a free utility and very well respected, available at
http://www.3degs.net/ .
It will log and display three or more temperature sensors as well as fan
speeds and voltages. Install this utility and log the reports as you
operate your system at various crunching levels. The log should give you an
idea of what's going on. Also use an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer
with a probe to check air temperature inside the case and especially the
temperature of the air leaving the CPU case. Removing the side from the
case may make some areas hotter and some areas cooler. Check the PSU intake
air temperature and output air temperature. It may be that the power supply
is getting air that has already been heated by the rest of the system.
Also, before buying a new power supply, try removing the power supply from
the case, but keep the cables plugged in. This should determine if poor air
circulation is the cause of your reported problem.

You say you found a capacitor in the bottom of the case. There are so many
capacitors on the motherboard it would be hard to determine if one were
completely missing. I think it highly unlikely that a capacitor could have
escaped from the PSU box. A description of the capacitor you found would
help. If it is a tubular electrolytic capacitor, about the size of a 1 inch
length of pencil, with a value of 10,000 microfarads or so and a working
voltage of 20 Volts or so, and it fell off the motherboard or Display
adapter, then it likely is from one of the capcitors in a DC-DC
regulator/convertor, and that is a serious problem that likely will make the
DC voltage it supplies sag under high current draws. If it is smaller, say
a 1/2" length of pencil, with a capacitance of ~ 100 to 1000 microfarads,
and with a working voltage of ~ 7 Volts, then it likely helped eliminated
noise on the power traces on the motherboard or a card. But those are just
guesses.

By the way, I have a system with a 450 Watt power supply
'Northwood' 2.6 GHz @ 3.51 GHz
640 MBytes of RDRAM
5 hard drives
1 DVD +R/W
1 CD R/W
1 SCSI Zip drive
1 3.5" floppy
SCSI PCI card
Sound Blaster Audigy
1 wireless LAN
1 USB2.0 PCI card
1 Television Tuner/Capture card
1 AGP slot with varying contents, usually about a 40 Watt card

Worked fine with a 350 Watt supply, works fine with a 450 Watt supply.
However, I don't play games demand a lot of GPU power. I do run high CPU
usage applications.

Good luck. Please post as you gather more information.

The shortest, easiest path to identifying your problem might be to
#1. remove the case side and place a 20" box fan blowing directly into the
system case and try to recreate the problem
#2. swap in another known good Power Supply and try to recreate the problem
#3. then swap in a known good identical graphics card and try to recreate
the problem
Oil squeaky wheel.

Phil Weldon





"AAvK" wrote in message
news:UOK1f.710$UF4.451@fed1read02...
|
| ATX power supplies DO NOT SHUT THEMSELVES DOWN IF TOO MUCH POWER IS
DRAWN!
| ATX power supplies DO shut down if a dead short develops. ATX power
| supplies will begin to overheat if to much power is drawn, but this
takes a
| relatively long period of time, much longer than the period of time for
| drives to spin up. The overload protection fuse is to protect the AC
wiring
| with in the case and the AC wiring between the case and the building
breaker
| box. This fuse is a safety feature, not an overload protector. An
overload
| of several times the rated power is necessary to blow the fuse within a
few
| minutes.
|
|
| Phil, power I am using, 375 watts plus 20% adds up to exactly the same as
my
| PSu is rated, 450 watts. You say this is sufficient, I have enough cooling
definitely
| as the whole case is internally exposed... the side cover is off. Only Far
Cry shuts
| the computer down, doesn't matter if anything is drawing too much power,
so the
| PSu must have some kind of short?
|
| I did find a small capacitor on the floor of the case one time over a year
ago. I
| examined the whole mobo and the cards, no place could be found where it
would
| be missing from. Do you think the cap could have lopped out of the PSu
through
| the fan??? This PSu has a fan on it's bottom face and another on the face
that is
| the back, where the power switch and cord are located.
|
| --
| Giant_Alex
| cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
|
|

What power supply do you have in this rig? sounds too low end.
McG.


It's an "Avus Premier Performance Pro Gold 450w"...
really a damn good one so far, 'cept fer the damn problem
I've got.

--
Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com

Yes I am using the Logitech driver and I was not impressed. The
first thing I found was a bug that their driver does not work properly
when the games are installed on drive D:. That has been reported an
maybe they will fix it. I uninstalled and installed my games on drive
C: but that did not cure the problem I had with Far Cry.

I just tried the above calculator and it says I need 398 Watts of
power and if you add 20%, it is 477.6 watts. My Antec True Power is
480 watts. :-)

I run Motherboard Monitor and everything there shows normal. If there
were fluctuations I would expect to see them there. I'm not convinced
that my problem with Far Cry is my power supply. My system does not
crash with Far Cry, it just stops recognising mouse commands. I may
try a MS Mouse and see if it work better.

Ak

I am using an MX700 Logitech mouse with Logigamer and the latest drivers
and have no problems at all.

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:16:11 GMT, "Phil Weldon"
wrote:
2. A display adapter using the nVidia 6800 uses far less power (perhaps
half) compared to one using the nVidia 6800 Ultra.

Yes, the PSU calculator shows a vanilla 6800 as drawing 49w and an Ultra
drawing 77w.

3. New GPUs aren't 'requiring their own power'; some display adapter have
several connecting pins for +12V DC; this connects to the same +12V DC rail
that drives use. This replaces power that was previously drawn from the +5V
DC and/or +3.3V DC rails. The display adapters have on-board DC-to-DC
down-convertor/regulators that work more efficiently with +12V DC input than
with +5V DC or +3.3V DC input. The connecting wires and traces can be
smaller. The higher input voltage provides more stable operation. There is
power wasted and less heat produced using +12V DC than with the lower
voltages. Just because a display adapter requires a +12V DC connector
doesn't mean it draws more power than one which does not - it may even draw
less for the reasons just given. Using multiple +12V DC connectors SAVES
power because less in wasted in contact and conductor resistance.

I've not delved too much into how they work, but I was under the
impression that they needed their own power connectors because they draw
more watts than can be supplied directly through the (lower voltage) AGP
slot. I know they have step down converters to turn the 12v back into
vcore usable voltages, and that step-down is more efficient than
step-up.

6. | Hmm, yes, questionable. The calc suggested 310w used, so I put in a
350w
| cheapo and when it got hot it would power down. Using the mobo power
| check, when it was hot the PSU delivered less power, to the point it
| would trip. I bought a more expensive 350w dual rail PSU and it was much
| more stable.
In all probability your system was inadequately ventilated, though it may
also be that your power supply was falsly rated. What was the room ambient
temperature and the temperature of the air leaving the power supply? Did
you check, or did you just rely on what you were told? Power supplies are
rated at a specific temperatures. At higher temperatures they must be
derated. A power supply that is more than adequate at 60 C can be
inadequate at 75 C.

At the time I was measuring typically ambient temperatures around
26-28c, CPU 28c, GPU 30c, case 34c, PSU output 32c, drives 35c. I put an
extra fan blowing out in bottom rear and the case temp dropped to 30c
and the drives 32c. Seems the GPU being a long card and placed roughly
in the middle of the case cut the airflow bottom to top, so the extra
fan helped the airflow in the lower half of the case.

The cheapo PSU would often be outputting air at 42c+ and the case temp
was a few degrees higher, it also did not deliver stable 3.3v/12v when
it ran hot (for some reason the 1.5v and 5v always stayed stable, the
3.3v would rise to around 3.6v and the 12v would drop as low as 10.5v).
The new PSU runs a lot cooler and is more stable in it's power delivery.
--
Alfie
http://www.delphia.co.uk/
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

Sounds like it might be power supply related. If you can, borrow a PSU
from a friend or pug the card in a friends machine and try it.

Got no one around that has it going on actually, gotta buy a new one.

Don't know what ATI recommends, but I'm sure it takes at least 459w or
better.

I will check that out... I just did, and the ATI site mentions no system requirements.

--
Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 04:28:54 GMT, Al Kaufmann
wrote:

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:16:11 GMT, "Phil Weldon"
wrote:

In all probability your system was inadequately ventilated, though it may
also be that your power supply was falsly rated. What was the room ambient
temperature and the temperature of the air leaving the power supply? Did
you check, or did you just rely on what you were told? Power supplies are
rated at a specific temperatures. At higher temperatures they must be
derated. A power supply that is more than adequate at 60 C can be
inadequate at 75 C.

I bought the Antec TruePower supply and I knew that the power supply
fans run at the lowest speed appropriate to load and conditions. I
guess they do not speed up until the power supply gets hot. Not a
good idea if you are into overclocking.

I have enough case fans and a very good cpu heatsink and fan but still
my system gets about 10C hotter than a similar system with an Enermax
power supply and I have been scratching my head about that for a long
time now. I even thought I had faulty case fans because they were not
pushing much air. I finally read the fine print in the power supply
manual and the "special fan only connectors" the power supply provides
also regulate the case fans to the lowest speeds! I just wonder how
the power supply can tell what temperature I want inside my case.

Guess I will be disconnecing those fan only power connectors and using
the regular connectors.

Ak


TBH the one problem I have with Antec PSUs is that their fan speeds
(both for their internal fans and fans on the fan only leads) seem to
be set far too conservatively: even when things are getting pretty
hot, the fans are still not running very fast. Using the PSU
temperature to set case fan speeds seems a bit daft to me anyway.

I don't use their fan only leads for those reasons, and on my Antec
PSU I've connected the fans directly to 12V - I've changed them for
better fans, as well. It's a little bit on the noisy side ATM, so at
some point I'll probably put a resistor in to reduce the voltage to
them, and the noise, a little.

Patrick

- take five to email me...

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 11:01:37 GMT, "Reggie Hillier"
wrote:


Yes I am using the Logitech driver and I was not impressed. The
first thing I found was a bug that their driver does not work properly
when the games are installed on drive D:. That has been reported an
maybe they will fix it. I uninstalled and installed my games on drive
C: but that did not cure the problem I had with Far Cry.

I just tried the above calculator and it says I need 398 Watts of
power and if you add 20%, it is 477.6 watts. My Antec True Power is
480 watts. :-)

I run Motherboard Monitor and everything there shows normal. If there
were fluctuations I would expect to see them there. I'm not convinced
that my problem with Far Cry is my power supply. My system does not
crash with Far Cry, it just stops recognising mouse commands. I may
try a MS Mouse and see if it work better.

Ak

I am using an MX700 Logitech mouse with Logigamer and the latest drivers
and have no problems at all.

Old story, you are not using their G5 Laser mouse and if are, do you
have your games installed on drive d:? Other players besides myself
with this hardware have the same problem. Logitech knows about this
bug.

I just don't know if it is a Logitech bug or a Microsoft operating
system bug. Another usb device I have exhibits the same behavior.

Glad that you have no problems.

Ak

"AAvK" wrote in message
news:iML1f.712$UF4.402@fed1read02...

What power supply do you have in this rig? sounds too low end.
McG.


It's an "Avus Premier Performance Pro Gold 450w"...
really a damn good one so far, 'cept fer the damn problem
I've got.

--
Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com

That doesn't mean it will supply the needed current to either the 12v or 5v
rails. Another thing is that the motherboards own voltage regulators may
not be enough to supply the needed current to the card. Remember, this is a
1.5v card. The mobo has regulator IC's for PCI/PCI-e bus or PCI and AGP
buses. Your problem may not show up until the IC is loaded and hot.
I haven't heard of Avus. I have heard of and use Thermaltake and Antec. I
have a 420W and 430W in use on 2 different rigs, no problems with the cards
I'm using. It isn't so much the wattage, but the actual current each rail
is designed to supply. Both my PS's have all this info on a label on the PS
itself.
McG.

On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:18:05 -0500, Villain
wrote:


Sounds like it might be power supply related. If you can, borrow a PSU
from a friend or pug the card in a friends machine and try it.

Don't know what ATI recommends, but I'm sure it takes at least 459w or
better.

I just downloaded Far Cry again, re-installed and everything seems to
be working in the game. Hardware wise the only thing I changed now
was to buy a USB 2.0 powered hub ($28 at Wal-Mart) and plug most of my
USB devices including the Logitech G5 mouse into that.

Ak

Switching PSU have to have a minimal load to function, but as long as that
minimal load is met, it shouldn't be a problem. Your load is more than
enough to meet the minimal load it would need.

--
there is no .sig
"Alfie [UK]" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:51:03 GMT, "Phil Weldon"
wrote:

I was advised by others not to put in a 500w PSU as I first wanted to
do. Yes PSUs have under-draw protection, but prolonged use at low power
levels supposedly reduces the lifetime of the PSU.

As the 2nd link you provided states; PSUs MAY not have over-temperature
protection, where over-temperature is the result of current overload or
fan failure.

Try a read of
http://www.formfactors.org/developer...0Ratified.pdff
and
http://www.formfactors.org/developer...public_br2.pdf
.
Pay particular attention to:
"System power supply needs vary widely depending on factors such as the
application (that is, for desktop, workstation, or server), intended
ambient
environment (temperature, line voltage), or motherboard power
requirements."

--
Alfie
http://www.delphia.co.uk/
It's called Irony. You know. Like goldy or silvery, only it's made out of
iron.