Computer shutting down with SLI 7800GTX 512MB

[Steelski]

The system that most sites will test do not use raid 0 with 4 bloomin raptors and water cooling. and 3x120mm fans. power draw will be a bit higher than the 400 total power people are expecting.
I read up in a different thread about a guy and crossfire problems with 2x1900's it turned out to be the power supply aswell. I would suggest changing it to some other brand. I am not familiar with many PSU's so please could someone recomend one. make sure it has one massive 12v rail. that was the advice that i remembered ......1 massive rail.!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sentry2]

To the OP: That power supply has weird cross-loading requirements just like mine. You have to have a decent load on the +5V side of things.(I'm sure you do) Somewhere between 5 to 10 amps of draw. A power supply with one 12V rail would be the safest bet. The PC Power & Cooling 510W does 34A on the 12V rail but I don't think it would be enough to run 4 raptors and 2 512GTX's. The 850W and 1KW versions both have multiple rails.

I would just try replacing the Silverstone with a new one to see if it's deffective. If it doesn't fix it then go with a different supply. GL

 

[Zebo]

It's the PSU - You don't have any one rail there that can handle two 512s. It's not a matter of total watts of PSU, you have a good one - just no good for your application since it's secondary 12V rails are weak crashing system. (18A x 12V = 216W. While two 512's under load use 230W = crash master everytime) My advice is to return and Get a PCP&C 510 with 36A 12V or a Zippy 700 45A 12V.

 

[Cuular]

In reply to Stellski:
I just got done setting up a 1900CF system, and found that the Thermaltake PurePower 680 drives that system fine. The Silverstone, and my previous Enermax Noisetaker 600 wouldn't. The reason? the total 12v rail amps was 36 or less for the silverstone and enermax, ATI recommends at least 38 for 1900CF.

The Thermaltake provides a whopping 52amps to the 12volt rails, 38 are dedicated to the 2 PCIe connectors. It does have 3 rails 2 dedicated to PCIe. And it's actually on ATI's recommended list for 1900CF.

Model is ThermalTake PurePower 680 Part number w0049

link to site:ThermalTake PurePower 680

If you order the one from the egg's site you get that one, not the one that they list, which is the previous model with only 38amps total, for the 12v rails.

Basically the silversotne can drive the GTX/256MB SLI, but can't drive either the 512's or the 1900CF, because the combined power on the 12v rails is not at 38 or above.

 

[JackBurton]

I'd like to see how this works out.

 

[SolMiester]

Man, that is some system!

 

[Keysplayr]

Scotty: "I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER CAPTAIN!!!"
Kirk: "Dammit Scotty, I told you we needed at least a 500W Dylithium Crystal Power Supply with at least 33A on the 12V+ Rail!!!"

I know your PSU would seem to be enough, but 55A divided 4ways leaves you only 13.75A per rail, at least I think so unless it's divied up unevenly.

Check with Ronin and Rollo, as they have GTX512 and GTX SLI setups respectively.

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: Cuular
In reply to Stellski:
I just got done setting up a 1900CF system, and found that the Thermaltake PurePower 680 drives that system fine. The Silverstone, and my previous Enermax Noisetaker 600 wouldn't. The reason? the total 12v rail amps was 36 or less for the silverstone and enermax, ATI recommends at least 38 for 1900CF.

The Thermaltake provides a whopping 52amps to the 12volt rails, 38 are dedicated to the 2 PCIe connectors. It does have 3 rails 2 dedicated to PCIe. And it's actually on ATI's recommended list for 1900CF.

Model is ThermalTake PurePower 680 Part number w0049

link to site:ThermalTake PurePower 680

If you order the one from the egg's site you get that one, not the one that they list, which is the previous model with only 38amps total, for the 12v rails.

Basically the silversotne can drive the GTX/256MB SLI, but can't drive either the 512's or the 1900CF, because the combined power on the 12v rails is not at 38 or above.

That EXACT PSU was the one I moved OUT of my system (the one in the sig) because every time I'd launch a 3D app, my LEDs would dim, and on occassion, the system would simply shut down.

I'd had a S12-600 laying around, and I put that into my system (with more power using devices than I had with the 680W TT), and I've had NO issues whatsoever.

Stay away from the TT, and look at other options.

I'm aware that I mentioned a somewhat favorable review earlier, but very shortly after, my experiences were not nearly as positive (note this PSU was almost brand new, and was a return from an RMA, guaranteed new, so in essence, this is the second 680W TT I've had problems with..the first one outright died on me, but not before it massively corrupted one of my OS installs on the box it was being used on).

 

[Pete]

FYI, for everyone who uses MBM or their BIOS or any software to check rail voltages: don't. They're not accurate. You want accurate, buy a $10 multimeter from Sears or Radio Shack or Microcenter or wherever, set it to DC Volts, and check a molex cable inside your PC while you're running whatever test it is that causes a problem.

Maybe the only thing MBM or the like would be okay for is to check for voltage spikes or dips, but don't rely on the MB to report accurate PSU voltages.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Scotty: "I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER CAPTAIN!!!"
Kirk: "Dammit Scotty, I told you we needed at least a 500W Dylithium Crystal Power Supply with at least 33A on the 12V+ Rail!!!"

I know your PSU would seem to be enough, but 55A divided 4ways leaves you only 13.75A per rail, at least I think so unless it's divied up unevenly.

Check with Ronin and Rollo, as they have GTX512 and GTX SLI setups respectively.

LOL - you said it alienware sells thier Sli'd 512's and GTX's with a single rail high power PCP&C 510 watter. (36A on 12) They would'nt be doing that if they thought it would shut down when running 3dmarks or gaming.

Stay away from the TT, and look at other options

Agreed, anything Tt.

 

[brownzer]

A Non power related solution for the OP.

Background:
Having had similar computer shutdown problems at 1280x1024 fixed
by additional cooling, the problem reappeared at 1920x1200 with
Call of Duty 2 and Half life 2.

Symptoms:
I noticed that the problem was 'scene' related on
my PC, for example, the final playable scene in HL2 where Breen complains
about the rabble in streets always causes the pc to shutdown at that point. If you
can tie your problem to a scene, rather than how long the pc has been running, then
we have the same problem.

Solution:

The following solution worked for me (YMMV):
- Force Vertical sync ON in global nvidia settings
- In advanced nvidia profile settings, set SLI mode to be multi-gpu
(it defaults to single gpu), don't use mutli-gpu antialiasing.
- You should'nt alter any of the other settings.

Note: My monitor runs at 60hz.

Results:
The results are perfect runs of all the games I want to play. The v sync
makes it stable and the sli mode makes it run faster

Give it a go and let us know how you get on.

Notes:
I also changed my nvidia drivers to the latest beta in desperation,
however, I don't think you need to change drivers to fix the problem.

An additional bonus to this solution, is that you will see much less
'skipping' of animation frames with SLI enabled.

Rig:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz Socket 939,
2MB, w/fan

Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR-DIMM 2048MB
Kit w/two matched CMX1024-3200C2 DIMMs

Asus A8N-SLI Premium, nForce4 SLI,Socket
-939, Super Cooling pipe, PCI-Ex16

Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA
8MB 10000RPM

Thermaltake Silent Purepower 680W
Powersupply, 20/24pin

Antec P160 Miditower, Silver,
Side window, (Without PSU)

LG DVD±RW burner, GSA-4167RBB, 16x,
Dual, Black OEM

2 XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB GDDR3 XXX,
PCI-Express, Dual-DVI/HDTV/ViVo, Retail

Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" widescreen
16ms response time.