Thermaltake Power Express Drivebay PSU

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SHOguy91

New Member
I just upgraded my vid card to a HIS 3870 from a Asus x1950 PRO. Both cards power requirements are about the same. But I was running my 1950 off a 585w PSU that only had one 12V rail that put out 25amps which the 1950 and the 3870 both require 28amps.

I ran the 1950 off that 25amp line for a good 6 months with no real issues. Sometimes so artifacting in gaming. And I been looking at 3870's for a while so I finally upgraded. And I picked up a Thermaltake Power Express Drivebay PSU to help with the amp requirements.

The Thermaltake site lists the Drivebay PSU as 21 amps and people are using these things to run dual 8800 setups. So with my 25amps from my normal PSU and the 21 amps from my drivebay PSU that should be plenty enough.

But I have been getting some issues with games. No artifacts but sometimes I get games crashing and looking at the error logs links it to the videocard. And the onlything I can think of causing that would be amp issues. So what gives?
 
The drivebay PSU should provide ample power, all it has to power is the video card.

Have you looked into other possible causes, drivers, etc...?
 
All drivers are as new as they get seeing as I just went to vista. But something interesting just happened. I turned down the OC on my vid card and it didn't help any. So I then turned down the OC on my processor and all the problems are gone, that really makes no sense.

Especially since I have seen this drivebay PSU power 2 x1900xt's with only a normal 300 watt PSU being used for everything else.
 
Well I messed around some more, even at stock OC I am getting small issues. Like the letters in words are mashing together reading something like "hi" sometimes just looks like the h has a dot on it.

One thing I did notice is the 12V1 light on the Thermaltake is barely on (probably because my 585w has no issue supplying watts to the 3870). But if thats not on wouldn't that drop my amps below the recommended 28 amps? Seems dumb, but maybe the answer would be to swap out for a really crappy PSU so the thermaltake has to always run. Or is there a way to keep the thermaltake on, thats if this is the issue.
 
You did plug the 6 pin PCI-E connector from the Thermaltake drivebay, not the one from the 585W PSU into the video card, didn't you?

Basically, the Thermaltake drivebay PSU should power the video card via the 6 pin PCI-E connector, and nothing else. The main PSU is responsible for powering everything else (and providing partial power to the video card via the PCI-E slot). An inferior PSU will only make things worse, as it will still need to power everything but the video card, the Thermaltake PSU can't help with that.
 
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Yep it's plugged in there. And right now as I look down at the Thermaltake there only light on is the red light that says it has power, the 12v1 light is not on which is the 6 pin thats plugged into the 3870.
 
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