6800 Ultra under powered?

[Logolotta]

I'm upgrade a voodoo PC from a geforce 5950 to a 6800 Ultra 256MB. While running the nvidia graphic demos the system locks up. I'm worried it's being under powered. I also put a 2nd hard drive in the system (same upgrade). How can I know for sure if it's being under powered? Can I under clock the card if it is under powered? Help!

-Enermax FM Series 460W ATX Switching Power Supply
-Asus SK8N
-Athlon 64 FX 51
-MSI Geforce 6800 Ultra 256
-80 gig WD Hard Drive
-74 gig Raptor Hard Drive
-Sound Blaster Audigy
-Lite-On CD-Rom

 

[NokiaDude]

Only way is to buy a 500W or higher PSU and see if that fixes it. You can underclock the 6800U with the coolbits registry tweak but what's the point?!? It's like buying a ferrari to drive to work!!

 

[Logolotta]

Well I'm upgrading this for a friend, he's getting home from vacation today... I gotta get this sorted out before he gets back. If I underclock it, it'd be temp. But would that make it more stable on the power side of things??

 

[aatf510]

I think a 460w Enermax should be good enough to power that.
How many A on the +12v?

 

[Logolotta]

CRAP, doom 3 just locked up. I'm freaking out. How can I tell if it's just a bad video card?

33 Amps on the 12+

 

[Mrvile]

It might be overheating. I have the same PSU and the same video card you do, and 3DMark05 and Sims 2 run fine for me. Run RTHDRIBL and monitor your temps.

 

[Logolotta]

Error message: STOP 0x000000EA THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER, thats what the blue screen said after Doom 3. I'm thinking it's a bad video card now.... Thoughts?

 

[Logolotta]

I've ran RTHDRIBL and Nalu and the nvidia temp display says it's at 70 degrees c. Sooo that looks good... I'm thinking this MSI card is just bad. Another weird thing, the textures on the mermades face in Nalu goes black...


I'm running RTHDRIBL and Doom 3 time demo at once, it's still not going past 70.

 

[furballi]

The Enermax should work. Open the case and retest. If problem persists, then connect only the hard drive to the motherboard and retest.

I suspect it may be a software issue.

 

[Logolotta]

what sort of software issue?

 

[1sikbITCH]

If you power your videocard and a harddrive or some other device off of the same line, you will probably experience problems.

The videocard will do much better if it's the only thing plugged into that particular line.

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

thast a heat problem, either cpu or video card.

 

[furballi]

Video driver issue or a problem with that particular game.

 

[Logolotta]

It's not over heating. I've monitored all the temps, they're fine. I'm using the current nvidia drivers for the geforce, so I dont think it's that either. They were installed on a fresh reformat.

I've downloaded Riva Tuner, and set the 2d clock speed to match the 3d clock speed (read that on another forum), 2d was increase from 400mhz to 425mhz. I also disable fast write in bios. Athlough disabling fast write didnt seem to fix anything. I think potentially the tweaking in Riva Tuner might have helped. But I still got Doom 3 to lock up in a time demo.

 

[uOpt]

It is unlikely that the PSU is the problem. You have a high quality 460 watts. I powed a stronger system with a 400 watts Zalman.

Next cheap test would be the RAM. Pull out half of your RAM and see whether that fixes it.