Symptoms of an underpowered x1950Pro 512Mb AGP

[Mother]

Hi guys (and gals),

I've recently received an x1950Pro AGP which has been causing me some
headaches which I think are PSU related. I'm fitting the card to my
Shuttle SN85G4v2 which has been powering my x800Pro quite nicely for
the last 3 years. Unfortunately the Shuttle is fitted with a
proprietary power supply which only puts out 240W.

I did my research before buying the card and a number of Shuttle
owners have successfully managed to run them on the 240W supply -
however mine is giving me display corruption - followed by either a
corrupted BSOD reporting the infinite loop, or a blank screen.

I've reinstalled the OS, installed Catalyst 7.7s (the 7.8's turn off
PCI read/writes and AGP read/writes), but the problem still remains.

I've run through the following steps to try and stop it:

1. Removed my Audigy 4 - in case it was a caused by too much traffic
over the PCI bus
2. Disabled all un-needed devices (LAN and WLAN)
3. Removed the case to allow for better cooling
4. Run the x1950 off a separate PSU (using the molex connectors from
another machine held at the BIOS screen)
5. Installed ATiTool and run the cards fan at 100% (to see if it was
temperature related)

The problem is extremely intermittent. I've been able to play BioShock
and CoD2 for periods of time without any problems some times and with
almost instant crashes on others. It appears that it's not dependent
on how hard the card or processor are being worked as it happens at
the desktop in plain old XP whilst it's doing nothing. Display
corruption has also occurred on the BIOS screen after reboot so I'm
doubting it's the drivers.

I'm now faced with either returning the card - or spending $140 on a
Shuttle PC50 300W PSU (which I'll have to mod my case for).

Can anyone tell me what the symptoms of having an underpowered PSU
are? I've got a funny feeling that I might already know, but I just
want to make sure.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[Kent_Diego]

The best method of trouble shooting is replace with know good. Either try
video card in other system or get different power supply and try plugging
into Shuttle to see if fixes. My guess is it is bad video card and not PS
since the power draw is much higher in 3D games then idle. Your X800 worked
so it is not motherboard or rest of system. You can try ATITool and under
clock GPU to see if fixes.

 

[TGH]

I had exactly the same symptoms, sometime it would crash when playing games
or just opening outlook would crash it, then it could go for days without a
problem. as soon as I got a meatier psu all the problems stopped.

have you got a spare 5.25 slot if to try one of these, a friend of mine has
a shuttle and this was his solution.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=19028&promoid=1055

 

[Mother]

Thanks for getting back to me guys.

I've recently tried the card in another machine and it gave me exactly
the same problem. The alternative machine had a 300W power supply
fitted, but I don't think it served as much ampage on the 12V rail as
my Shuttle PSU. Either way, it's handy to know that it's not a heat
buildup inside my Shuttle or an issue with the chipset on the board.

When I placed the x1950 back in my Shuttle it started to crash a lot
more frequently, to the point where it would do it before I'd even
logged in or maybe after a couple of minutes web surfing. ATiTool
would definitely kill it within 3-4 minutes of use. I've reverted back
to my x800 for the time being whilst I work out my next step and I've
not had any trouble with it. I can't believe that the x1950 draws more
power at idle than an x800 under full load, it doesn't make sense!

The FSP is a nice idea but unfortunately my Shuttle only has the one 5
1/2" bay

I'm probably just going to RMA the card and see if I do any better
with Sapphire than with HIS.

Cheers for the advice,

Jim