I just built myself a new PC with the following specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200
OCZ 2GB Pc6400 DDR2 Ram
Diamond Radeon Hd3850 factory overclocked to 725/1800 Mhz
Gigabyte Ga-EP35-DS3L
Antec Earthwatts EA500 500w PSU
Samsung 20x DVD burner
Western Digital 160GB HD
Cooler Master Centurion 5 Case
From early on, this build started having troubles. I ran Furmark to stress the GPU, and it crashed almost immediately, with the screen going black with white vertical streaks. I had to resort to lowering the clocks back to the standard ones in order to get it stable. Even then, however, during games I occasionally get crashes.
I decided to install Windows XP SP3, just to keep everything up to date. During the reboot, however, the PC locked up at the Gigabyte splash/logo screen. I tried pressing Del to enter the BIOS, but nothing happened. I had to reset the CMOS in order to get everything back to normal again.
This anomaly came back again, however, after plugging in several devices, such as an Ipod Shuffle charger and a USB printer cable, and I was puzzled. I then noticed that if I unplugged my Ipod charger when the PC froze at the splash screen, the computer would boot up normally. This indicated to me that my PSU might have some problems.
My games also crash at certain times, as mentioned earlier, possibly due to the video card not getting enough power, with only Ati's VPU recover preventing the whole system from freezing.
I tested both sticks of my ram with Memtest, and they had no errors.
Could the PSU be the culprit for the aforementioned issues? Or is it something else?
EDIT: I also noticed that if I ran Furmark, the +12V rail's voltage would fluctuate fairly significantly, anywhere from 1.1-1.2V at Idle, to 1.66-2.2V under load. There were also occasionally sudden rises and falls in voltage. Is this normal?
No cross posting of topics. I have left the one in Computer Help open and locked this one.
esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200
OCZ 2GB Pc6400 DDR2 Ram
Diamond Radeon Hd3850 factory overclocked to 725/1800 Mhz
Gigabyte Ga-EP35-DS3L
Antec Earthwatts EA500 500w PSU
Samsung 20x DVD burner
Western Digital 160GB HD
Cooler Master Centurion 5 Case
From early on, this build started having troubles. I ran Furmark to stress the GPU, and it crashed almost immediately, with the screen going black with white vertical streaks. I had to resort to lowering the clocks back to the standard ones in order to get it stable. Even then, however, during games I occasionally get crashes.
I decided to install Windows XP SP3, just to keep everything up to date. During the reboot, however, the PC locked up at the Gigabyte splash/logo screen. I tried pressing Del to enter the BIOS, but nothing happened. I had to reset the CMOS in order to get everything back to normal again.
This anomaly came back again, however, after plugging in several devices, such as an Ipod Shuffle charger and a USB printer cable, and I was puzzled. I then noticed that if I unplugged my Ipod charger when the PC froze at the splash screen, the computer would boot up normally. This indicated to me that my PSU might have some problems.
My games also crash at certain times, as mentioned earlier, possibly due to the video card not getting enough power, with only Ati's VPU recover preventing the whole system from freezing.
I tested both sticks of my ram with Memtest, and they had no errors.
Could the PSU be the culprit for the aforementioned issues? Or is it something else?
EDIT: I also noticed that if I ran Furmark, the +12V rail's voltage would fluctuate fairly significantly, anywhere from 1.1-1.2V at Idle, to 1.66-2.2V under load. There were also occasionally sudden rises and falls in voltage. Is this normal?
No cross posting of topics. I have left the one in Computer Help open and locked this one.
esquared
Anandtech Senior Moderator
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