need some advice for dealing with my 6800 ultra

[bluesdoggy]

First my system specs:

Base:
3.0 ghz P4 Northwood (never oc'd)
Abit IC7-g rev2 (no funky cooler)
Antec NeoPower 480

Drives:
2x512 Corsair low latency pc3200, conservative timings 2-2-3-5
2x250gb Maxtor Diamond Max Pata Hds
1x160gb Western Digital Special edition Pata HD
1xLite-on Dual Layer DVD burner
1xLite-on 52x CDrw

PCI cards:
1xDLink 802.11g pci card
1xSB Live! Audigy 2 pci card
1xHauppauge PVR 250 pci card

Video:
1xPNY 6800 Ultra


My problem is of course regarding the 6800 ultra. I'm getting lockups in games, and occassionally getting graphical artifacting (looks like a weird shimmering lattice work) that happens randomly in both 2d and 3d modes. Games i've tried include Doom3, Far Cry, Warhammer: Dawn of War, Warcraft III, and Rome: Total War. I am also unable to do a sustained stress test of looping 3dmark 2k4 without experiencing either the application crashing, or the system locking.

I finally got in touch with PNY's tech support and they were everything except helpful. They seem convinced my PSU isn't supplying enough current on the 12 volt rail for the card. I am running quite a few devices so i could see this, except for the fact that i've tried running the card with everything removed except just the card, 1 optical drive, 1 hd, and the sound card. Also, my particular PSU supplies up to 32 amps of current across two 12 volt rails, which i have to think is enough even for this power sucking thing.

I'm currently googling and forum searchin for fixes, but thought i'd post here to see if i could get some feedback from you guys as to what to try.

This is what i've done already:

Flashed to latest nvidia gpu bios (i think it ends in 15?)
Disabled AGP FastWrites
Standard format, reinstall of drivers (using the latest WHQL drivers from nvidia)

I also have made sure that each power input on the card is connected to a seperate channel from the PSU, not using the Y-cable to connect them to a single.

The PNY guys basically scared me into trying to fix this myself ("we'll RMA it, but if it comes back and passes our tests, we are just gonna send it back to you"), so any info y'all can throw my way is greatly appreciated

blues

 

[nitromullet]

I had issues similar to this with my GT, and it turned out not being adequate, clean power. Make sure that the molex connectors going to your card are not being shared with any other devices. Make sure that the molex connectors going to the card are coming directly from the PSU, no Y's or extensions. I had an extension between my PSU and the GT that was the cause of my problems, and I have not had any problems since I removed it. It appears that you might have already tried this, but I figured I would mention it anyway. These cards seem to be pretty touchy about power requirements.

Edit: that PSU looks like it has a lot of extensions to make wiring neat. There are other PSU's that feature this type of cabling that have caused others problems with their 6800 GT/Ultra cards. Cool idea for a PSU no doubt, but it could be the cause of your problem.

 

[bluesdoggy]

i've put each molex connector on its own line, but i have had to have them share with ohter devices. I'm not sure that i can rig it such that each one of them get their own totally dedicated line. The ripple on these neopower supplies is supposed to be < 3% so i thought i'd be safe from too much variance, but i suppose i should try this.

 

[nitromullet]

Antec makes solid PSU's, so I don't think it is the power from the PSU, but the cabling. I have my GT running directly from the PSU all by itself and the other devices are running off of the other 2 lines. See if you can at least dedicate one line to the Ultra and hook it to the primary molex, try only sharing on the secondary connector, which I think is the one closest to the mobo. Either that, or see if you borrow a different PSU...