Does the techie know what hes talking about?

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kristersaurus

Member
Aug 13, 2005
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After a quality conversation with xfx tech support about my shiny new geforce 6800, I wanted to see what you guys thought about this not-so-helpful person's advice.

The problem is that in any intensive application, even such as the clear sailing nvidia 6800 technology demo, 1 of 2 things happen: the app runs at 1fps (literally - farcry, half-life, etc), or the game runs ok, but with this strange half-second or second long stutter at very frequent intervals. The circumstances under which the games run at 1fps are really weird too - in farcry, alt+tabbing out and back fixes it. I reinstalled the drivers and it seemed to go away for a little while, but after a few reboots and tweaks it is back.

Anyway, the guy said that the 17A my PS is giving on the 12volt rail wasn't enough. He said they recommend at least 20. And thats about all he had to say. Is this a very legit concern or a scapegoat?
 
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TerryMathews

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,464
2
0
Well...

Is your system comparable to that video card (A64 or P4, etc.)? If so, then yes power could be a very real concern. You've got to remember that these cards consume so much power that they utilize an outboard power connector. +12V is available on the AGP/PCIe slot, just not in the quantities these cards use. That alone should be a strong pointer to how much the card alone sucks up.
 
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Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
7
81
Scapegoat I'd say, if your video card wasn't recieving enough power it would have rendering errors or the system would just crash.
 
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pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
7,419
22
81
Seems to me that if it were a power supply issue, then there'd be nothing that could fix it - even temporarily - barring taking out something else off of the 12V line - like a hard drive. I can't begin to guess how alt-tabbing out of a game and then back in would fix any hardware-related issue like a flaky power supply... Or reinstalling the drivers.

It is interesting that it only happens in intensive applications and not typical things too. I'm not sure what I'd suggest... I guess I'd recommend returning it back to the store while it's still shiny.
 
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kristersaurus

Member
Aug 13, 2005
47
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The powersupply is supposedly 480w, +3.3v:28A, +5v: 38A, +12V:17A, -12:0.8, -5:0.5, +5VSB: 2A.

Thanks a lot for the replies and the help.
 
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Some1ne

Senior member
Apr 21, 2005
862
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I've had the '1 fps' issue in the past myself (or at least something very similar), and it was caused by setting my card's core/memory speeds to anything other than defaults (it didn't matter if I set them lower or higher or if I only changed them by 1 MHz or 100, any change would result in the problem, and it wouldn't go away until after a reboot). Are you trying to run your card at overclocked settings? If so you may want to try setting it back at default, and rebooting. I was having this issue with a geforce 5700 XT, and the problem went away when I replaced it with a 6600 GT (to go with my new PCI-E mainboard).

As far as the stuttering goes, if you have a slow/heavily fragmented HDD, and/or not a lot of RAM, then that's one possible cause.
 
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Operandi

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,508
0
0
Originally posted by: kristersaurus
The powersupply is supposedly 480w, +3.3v:28A, +5v: 38A, +12V:17A, -12:0.8, -5:0.5, +5VSB: 2A.

Thanks a lot for the replies and the help.
Click to expand...

It could cause the problems. It?s hard to say for sure until you take some measurements from the rails, preferably with a mulitmeter

What I can say for sure is that a 480 watt PSU should have a much stronger 12v rail then that. For comparison my 360 watt PCP&C has 22 amps on the 12v rail.
 
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imported_goku

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2004
7,613
3
0
Originally posted by: kristersaurus
After a quality conversation with xfx tech support about my shiny new geforce 6800, I wanted to see what you guys thought about this not-so-helpful person's advice.

The problem is that in any intensive application, even such as the clear sailing nvidia 6800 technology demo, 1 of 2 things happen: the app runs at 1fps (literally - farcry, half-life, etc), or the game runs ok, but with this strange half-second or second long stutter at very frequent intervals. The circumstances under which the games run at 1fps are really weird too - in farcry, alt+tabbing out and back fixes it. I reinstalled the drivers and it seemed to go away for a little while, but after a few reboots and tweaks it is back.

Anyway, the guy said that the 17A my PS is giving on the 12volt rail wasn't enough. He said they recommend at least 20. And thats about all he had to say. Is this a very legit concern or a scapegoat?
Click to expand...

You need to RMA that video card STAT! I went through the exact same thing with my Radeon 9800pro, it would stutter every 3 seconds when moving, kinda like D3D stuttering. Contacted ATi but they were useless and told me the card was fine when I KNEW there was something about the card but kept it anyways. Well a year had passed and wasn't really gaming on it because that had been pissing me off so then the card began to overheat/artifact in windows while doing 2D work (wasn't gaming at all) and I had never overclocked the video card. RMA'ed the video card and the stuttering thing went away COMPLETELY! I was very happy. But you know what I did when I recieved the RMA card? I overclocked it! ;) ALOT! So yes your card is bad.
 
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ArchAngel777

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
5,223
61
91
You need to RMA that video card STAT! I went through the exact same thing with my Radeon 9800pro, it would stutter every 3 seconds when moving, kinda like D3D stuttering. Contacted ATi but they were useless and told me the card was fine when I KNEW there was something about the card but kept it anyways. Well a year had passed and wasn't really gaming on it because that had been pissing me off so then the card began to overheat/artifact in windows while doing 2D work (wasn't gaming at all) and I had never overclocked the video card. RMA'ed the video card and the stuttering thing went away COMPLETELY! I was very happy. But you know what I did when I recieved the RMA card? I overclocked it! ALOT! So yes your card is bad.
Click to expand...

In your case, it appears that is true. I have also seen systems do it that do not have UDMA enabled on the Hard Drive. My system would always glitch every so often and it would piss me off, then I figured out my HDD wasn't running in UDMA mode. Changed it and video glitchs went away.
 
rbV5

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
12,632
0
0
Try setting your AGP aperature to 256 MB in the BIOS (if it already isn't)...I've seen and had this exact issue with my 128MB 6800 standard and the NV tech demos, your techie friend is incorrect on this one I'll bet;)
 
rbV5

rbV5

Lifer
Dec 10, 2000
12,632
0
0
Originally posted by: Ricemarine
Changing aperature size to 256 mb is a bit much...
Click to expand...

We'll see won't we :)

Edit: Here's one thread on the same exact issue from last yearLink
 
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