Corsair CMPSU-520HX enough for my rig?

[agen]

Specs of my rig:
CI7 930, stock cooler
GA-X58-UD3R
Sapphire 5870 1GB
6GB OCZ Gold PC12800
2x 640GB WD Black 6GB/s R0
Generic DVDRW
Antec 900 case, 5x case fans

Reason I ask, is because I just put this together less than 1 week ago and have been having 2 strange issues.

1. Sometimes the PC posts with only 4GB out of the 6GB total on the post screen. DDR3 channel 3 is the one that is always off. Usually cold booting the PC corrects this.

2. Starcraft 2 Beta (yea I know it's beta but still) locks up randomly during gameplay in this fashion: Screen just locks up, able to move the mouse, but eventually screen turns grey and causes a conflict with the ATI catalyst driver saying it crashed and has now recovered. Gameplay sometimes resumes or continues locking up.

No other games experience this kind of lock up at all (Crysis, Bioshock 2, COD MW2..).

Any input appreciated.

 

[SithSolo1]

I'm no expert but that seems like hefty load for a 520w psu, even a very sturdy one like the Corsair HX line.

 

[TemjinGold]

What driver version do you have for your vid card? My bro has the same setup (i7 920 OCed tho) with the same PSU and he has more HDs even. No problems on his.

I had driver crashes with some of the older ATi drivers but 10.3 WHQL has been fine.

 

[agen]

What driver version do you have for your vid card? My bro has the same setup (i7 920 OCed tho) with the same PSU and he has more HDs even. No problems on his.

I had driver crashes with some of the older ATi drivers but 10.3 WHQL has been fine.

I've actually used the same 10.3 WHQL drivers as well as the new 10.4 ones to the same result.

Yesterday, I actually went ahead and flashed my BIOS as well to the latest version and saw less of the lockup issue in SC2, but is still existent.

 

[MagickMan]

It should be just fine.

 

[TemjinGold]

I've never tried the Beta so I don't know what to tell you. I seriously doubt it's your PSU being inadequate though (especially since flashing your BIOS partly fixed it.)

 

[RaiderJ]

Could always stick one of those watt meters on it, see how much power you're really pulling. In my experience, people way overestimate the wattage needed for a system.

Personally, I'd run a MemTest and a hard drive test, see if that finds anything.

 

[Silenus]

I agree with Raider. Even today many seriously overestimate what they really need....assuming a quality power supply! Of course future expandability is another issue. Your 520 will be absolutely more than enough for your current rig, even overclocking everything. It's only if you plan on adding a second 5870 later in crossfire that you might consider a larger supply.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm no expert but that seems like hefty load for a 520w psu, even a very sturdy one like the Corsair HX line.

Not really. 5870 actually consumes less power than a stock 4890 during gaming: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gpu-power-consumption-2010_3.html#sect0

I am also running a Core i7 @ 3.9ghz vs. a 930 at stock and 4890 @ 950mhz vs. 850mhz stock. No problems at all.

Remember, corsair rates their PSUs based on maximum sustainable power consumption (in other words continuous power delivery). That means most other manufacturers would rate the PSU at 600 or higher.

 

[SithSolo1]

Remember, corsair rates their PSUs based on maximum sustainable power consumption (in other words continuous power delivery). That means most other manufacturers would rate the PSU at 600 or higher.

Did not know this, thanks for the clarification.

 

[yh125d]

SC2 is a beta. That means it will freeze/crash/error...


The ram issue, either that DIMM or that slot is going out. Try running in the other 3 slots and/or run memtest

 

[agen]

Well, I did run a full memtest and passed with 0 errors for 2 cycles. I dunno, considering I used this PSU on my previous C2D/8800GTS rig for a couple years, I'm thinking it might have reduced the overall capacity of it to perform? Wish I had a volt meter to test out.

I'm gonna try swapping out with a CMPSU-750TX and see how it works out. Considering the memtest passing, I'm thinking the PSU intermittently doesn't provide enough power to the 3rd DIMM chip I have. This is considering I've tried all different combination of the RAM in different slot configuration and have seen the same results.

 

[jjmIII]

Sounds like a flakey dimm slot on the mobo.

I know the PSU in my sig is overkill, but I never have to wonder if its enough, and it was only $99 shipped.

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: If everything is stock, you are pulling less than half of what that PSU is capable of at normal load. Unless you've had it for like years and years, there is no way it'd come close to degrading enough for that to be the issue. Now, it could legitimately be crapping out but it would not be due to normal wear and tear if it was.

jjmIII: The only downside to having your PSU be that amount of overkill is that during idle (when you aren't gaming basically, which for most people, is the majority of the time when they are using their computer) your system is pulling less than 20% of the capacity. The way PSUs are, the efficiency generally drops WAY down when you are below what is defined as light load (20%.) In other words, you are pulling way more power from the wall than you should need to. Is that a huge difference in dollars on your bill? Depends on where you live but usually not really. A lot of people don't mind. But some folks do (I'm one of those folks who doesn't like to be wasteful) so I'm mentioning it in case you are such a person and weren't aware of that.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The first place to look when buying a PSU is how many watts you'll pull from the outlet and you can buy a 24$ Watt Load reader from Lowes or Home Depot. They aren't critically accurate but enough to get a rough idea. My old i7 setup (920, Asrock E 58, 1g 5870, 150g HDD, 6g DDR3, pulled around 269watts when I played Unreal Tournament III. My 950w PSU's are great solid PSUs but 269 watts doesn't hit the 950's most efficient part of the power curve. With the Seasonic X 650 Gold, 269watts would hit the most effiecient part of the curve @ 92% efficient. Beyond 400 watts, the power efficiency would drop below 90% which is still great. You might want to look into a 620 watt PSU. Jonny Guru does a great job with power supply reviews. He recently reviewed the Seasonic S12 II 520. I'd go for the 620.

EDIT: oops, i totally missed the reason for the post. The PSU is fine, it's most likely the RAM with the mobo coming in a close second. Run Memtest HCI and LinX stability tools...

 

[Stefan Payne]

I'm no expert but that seems like hefty load for a 520w psu, even a very sturdy one like the Corsair HX line.

Ahm, no.
That's something my 400W Cougar (HEC-400TE) would take, so that's not the problem, if the PSU is OK.

It seems to me, that the problem is the CPU and/or the board (or more like the socket).
I think it's more likely that a DIMM is broken or even the socket (either RAM or CPU).

SC2 is a beta. That means it will freeze/crash/error...

The ram issue, either that DIMM or that slot is going out. Try running in the other 3 slots and/or run memtest

Don't you think that those two problems might be related?