PSU or Heat?

SpringWater

SpringWater

Member
My friend has a pc with the following specs:
CPU:AMD FX 8120, MB: ASUS M5A97PRO, RAM: 8gb 1600mhz, GPU: EVGA gtx480 1.5gb and an 8800gt 512mb for PhysX, PSU: Corsair CX600, CASE: some corsair one HDD: Two don't know how big 7200rpm.

He was getting blue screens, so he downclocked the cpu and removed the 8800gt, and now everything works fine. His theory is that it was generating too much heat and now that he removed the second vid card and downclocked the cpu it generates less heat and because of that his rig works just fine. My theory is that his psu wasn't able to handle his specs and removing the card and downclocking the cpu made the computer use up less energy making it work. We used an online power consumption calculator to calculate the power consumption and it said that with everything installed it said that the recommended psu is supposed to be 507 watts, and his is 600 watts.

So who is right?

Were the blue screens caused by the heat or by the psu not being able to handle the specs?
 
It could have actually been caused by a bad graphics card and/or bad graphics drivers.

A CX 600 may have been on the short end for two cards though and yeah the cards may have been getting hot and causing problems.
 
Not really other than maybe buy one of those things which plugs into the mains and then allows you to plug the power cord into it which shows you the wattage.

600W does seem a bit low for a GTX 480 and an 8800 GT - especially when I wouldn't run a GTX 480 on less than 600W. Why is he using an 8800 GT anyway when he's got a 480 in his system? Dedicated PhysX card or something?

I'd just tell him to not to bother with his 8800 and just keep using his 480 alone if it's working now.
 
Yeah I'd honestly get rid of it. Doesn't make that much of a difference anyway. The 480 is strong enough.
 
He removed the 8800gt and he just got a blue screen, however the cpu was overclocked. He brought it back to its normal speed and he kept getting the blue screens. Now he downclocked it to 2.8ghz and everything works fine, so the question is: I the amd stock cooler not able to handle to cpu at stock?
 
What overclock did he have on the 8120. Most will do 4.2 on stock voltage if you have all the power saving disabled. Anything over 4.2 you will need a voltage bump. The CX 600 has around 550W on the 12V rail.
 
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