New gfx card, new problems

dhume878

New Member
You know what they say "mo money mo problems". lucky for me the mo' money part certainly isn't a problem. Here's my issue:

Previous setup:
Q6600,
P35-DS3L Gigabyte
Rosewill RP550V2-D-SL 550W
4gb DDR2
Burned out an nVidia GT8800, and replaced with something like.. gtx 440, cheap best buy purchase.

I wanted to be able to play a few things I couldn't, and had been getting games to force close with no errors or warnings (Atlantica Online / Portal 2). Looking at my desktop GPU meter it seemed my flimsy GTX440 was maxed out and in my mind most likely causing the crashes.

I grabbed an nVidia (ASUS) GTX 770 and threw it in. Here are some potential issues I noticed right out of the gate.

1) My power supply @ 500W is less than the suggested.
2) My mobo currently only has PCIe 1.0 or 2.0, definitely not 3.0.
3) When I first plugged the power cords into the GPU power ports, only one of them lit up. I chalked it up to just not requiring both ports powered, but a quick attempt at bootup quickly told me otherwise (with error message). I swapped a few cables around and then both ports lit up and I booted up properly. What did you flip around, you may ask. I'm not really sure, I didn't perform and black magic and when both "powered" LEDs lit up I just scratched my chin and said .. "huh.."

So now, while I can certainly tell that I am running a GTX 770, at times I'm left feeling a bit concerned. I do see some lines while games are rending some scenes, but also I've had a force close or two in Atlantica Online, a graphics light-medium game. While this could be the game I'm still left feeling something is off.

Also, I've experienced this twice now, my computer will "freak out" as they say in the industry. My mouse pointer will get locked to one monitor, and move around as if it's only sporadically responding to my actual mouse. Also the mouse icon changes style, it's no longer filled in and only connected with yellow wire mesh. It seems as if something is malfunctioning.

I'm wondering if it's just that I'm not giving my system enough wattage with my power supply or if there could be something else. Obviously I'm trying to upgrade things piece wise, so I'd like to get it correct. Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm guessing the "lines" in my high end game rendering may just be caused by my older Q6600, but if there's something to help me debug where my trouble is I'd certainly be more than willing to run this.

(Technical BG: built 5 or 6 computers for myself through middle school - college so am comfortable with most hardware)

Sorry for the novel, any help would be appreciated!

Don

EDIT: Most importantly I want to be sure I won't damage my GPU by under powering it, if that is in fact what I am doing.
 
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Absolute garbage PSU with 2 x 18A 12V rails, one of which is isolated for the CPU, makes the rest of the system 18A available. But the story doesn't end there. This PSU is not new, and when you factor capacitor aging and temperature derating I would suggest you a looking a that rail having less than 14A available. This is only 168W on a graphics card that can easily use 200W during gaming (card only).

Your psu is garbage and needs replacing, and yes, that is probably what is causing the issues.
 
Yeah I agree. I wouldn't run a GTX 770 on that PSU and I bet that the power supply is most likely giving you problems.

You say your 8800 GT got burned out too using the same power supply too? Not a great sign if so.
 
Hey,

Excellent! Thanks for the stern yet insightful response. The 8800 had been in my computer for about 5+ years of nearly continuous usage so I wasn't too surprised when it dropped out.

Would either of you mind making a recommendation for a new PSU?
 
The Corsair CX 600 M would be a good affordable option. If you want slightly higher quality, then the Corsair TX 650 V2 is a nice option.

Anything in the 600-700W region from XFX, Corsair, OCZ or Seasonic would be ideal. Don't go below 600W and there's no reason to go beyond 700W.
 
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