Do I need to upgrade my 480W power supply for 9400GT card?

Hello

It's been a month since I got this new card and my computer has crashed 2-3 times already with the blue screen of death. In the past 3 years, my computer only crashed once or twice. My only conclusion is maybe my power supply or computer can't handle the card. I pass all the other requirements for the card except I have the minimum for the power supply.

9400GT minimum requirements:
400Watt or greater (with a 12V current rating of 26A)
NonSLI: 500Watt or greater, SLI: 600Watt or greater.

I'm not sure what SLI is. I plan to upgrade to 3GB from my 2GB memory for Windows XP which will probably require more power.

My power supply:
Antec True 480W Max
AC: 115V/12A, 230V/6A ; 60Hz/50Hz

Here is a chart on the PSU.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6549/antec.jpg

Right now the click switch on the back of the power supply is at 115. Should I change it to 230V?

How do I determine if my power supply is greater than 12V 26A and what do I need to look for when I buy a new power supply?

I'm considering getting a 550W PSU.

Thanks.

 

It's tough to say rickster, your PSU is well within the minimums required(300W), even if you have 1GB video RAM, heck man I ran a pair of 9800GT's at %100 load 24/7 on an OC'd Q6600 with 4GB RAM using an Antec Earthwatts 500W for a couple of years. I would start with running OCCT which will stress your machine to heck but will give you graphs right up to the point of a possible shutdown. Run it for the hour.

Those results will help us along.

Oh, do not switch the switch man.:eek

 

thanks...I only have 1HDD running...I can't imagine running 5 HDDs lol that's a whole lotta electricity.

I use the ANTEC site and it said 376W which I found surprising.

Do you guys know what a "12V current rating of 26A" means?

I looked on NewEgg at some of product descriptions for the power supplies and I can't seem to understand it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

For this example: It says "10A @ 115V" and say it says "2.2V"

10A x 2.2 = 22A? So does that mean this power supply isn't good enough for my graphic card? or Does it just matter the Watts of the power supply?

Also, how would I determine what my xA @ 115V would be on my current power supply?

 

You're confusing yourself there a bit. v2.2 is a standard that is followed by all mfgrs and it happens to be the latest. What you have to look at is the +12V rails and the PSU you specified has a pair @ 22A and one @ 25A which is excellent but over the top IMO. Your current power supply is excellent unless it's dying, please run OCCT before buying a PSU that you might not need. Can you remember what you were doing when it did go out on you?

 

This is a bit confusing. haha How did you get the numbers for a pair @ 22A and one @ 25A and what is +12V rails? Sorry. I'm a newbie to this.

I will run OCCT right now. I was loading a HD video from a news website and then all of sudden I get the blue screen of death.

 

Here are the initial test. I set it to run for an hour, but it finished at 32 minutes.

Should I run it again on the highest setting? Are there any settings I should change and scan again? Should I scan the other tests?

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7575/2011010719h08cpu1.png

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/2875/2011010719h08cpu2.png

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/296/2011010719h08gpu1.png

 

Did it BSOD again after the 32 minutes? Things look good temperature wise. I'm at a loss of what to suggest now as there were errors on core #1, your CPU might be failing.:confused Run Prime 95 and see what happens. This should either confirm OCCT's thinking or else we move on.

 

nope no BSOD ... I'm scanning it again right now with 16 minutes left. I did have turn off monitor and system standby to turn on at 20 minutes..I'm not sure if that made have caused the error. This time I just left the computer running with out system by turning on. I have 32bit Windows XP...is there another verison of Prime95?

 

This second scan completed without errors. I assume it was probably "System Standby" to turn on after 20 minutes caused the errors when my computer went idle.

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/1906/2011010720h29cpu1.png

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/9960/2011010720h29cpu2.png

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5620/2011010720h29gpu1.png

 

There are probably many, just use the latest one.:confused

 

After I finished downloading Prime95...I hear my hard drive struggling and then I got the BSOD... ...

Here's my Prime95 results.

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5258/primed.jpg

 

Well, do a chkdsk /f. Sounds like your HDD is failing. Back up what you can ASAP. Also, run memtest86+ just to rule out your RAM.

 

did Chkdsk...automatically scanned and corrected errors.
Ran memtest86+ for 7 hours and so and decided to reboot computer because I was unsure how long to run it for.
It showed about 900 something errors. I'm not sure how to get a report of the memory test.

Is there a program that test what causes the crash and BSOD?

 

I tried to disable a "process" called "IpodService.exe" "C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe" in Control Panel--> Administrative Tools--> Services and I got the BSOD twice when I clicked "Apply".

 

Hm....not looking good for my RAM then...Does that mean I need to replace both sticks of my 1GB memory?

My computer is still functioning somewhat, but whenever I load a video or have a lot of programs open, it may or may not crash. What can I do to improve it's performance besides get a new computer?

I have 60GB of free space on a 224GB hard drive. I'll probably just have to go back to Integrated Graphics if my computer keeps crashing.

 

good stuff here to review and consider on hardware troubles, nice thread guys!

 

For the RAM, if it's two sticks of 1GB then remove one and rerun the mem test. If it errors then that stick is bad. Place in the second stick and rerun the mem test, if it errors then it is bad.
If one test comes out clean after about an hour or three cycles then you are good for that stick of RAM, place it into the system and keep out the bad stick. You will be down RAM but XP can run fine on a 1GB.

And your issue can be a bad stick of RAM, test this before going to anything else

 

good thinking...thanks. I'm gonna try that.

 

Well what do ya know...Very interesting results...

After using your suggestion, I found that one stick of my 1GB ram was the one giving all the errors. I tried that stick in every slot and ran the test and they came up with 30 errors within a minute. The other stick of 1 GB ram passed the twice with no errors.

I've removed the bad ram and now I'm running on 1GB of RAM.

What else should I do now? Looks like I have to buy another 1GB ram right?

P.S. Thank you augiedoggie for your suggestions and help and as well as DavidGP, Break_Da, & plodr. Much appreciated. Have a great new year.

 

My pleasure. As to getting another stick, well that's entirely up to you. As was already mentioned, XP can live very happily with 1GB of RAM, heck my first XP machine only had 256MB.

The only reason you might want to replace that lost 1GB is if you're running a monster program like Photoshop or some huge game etc. If you're just a regular user who occasionally games, I'd keep my money in my pocket.

 

Just an afterthought here, you may experience some software problems in the future due to already corrupted files. You may even have to do a reformat eventually so don't go and put important stuff on the HDD or if you do then make sure to back it up right away. Always a good idea to back things up incase something gums up.

 

Wow, great to hear! And you are more than welcome! kudos!