Purchased GTX 660Ti - Need bigger Power supply?

[choliscott]

Hi Everyone,

I just purchased a GTX 660 TI & decided to do a fresh install of Windows. Probably a few hours after I was back up & running, I noticed that the computer would just freeze (no bsod, no weird artifacts, etc) to the point of even pressing the caps lock on the keyboard wouldn't reflect the light on the keyboard going on & off.

I thought maybe my OC needed more more juice so I bumped that up a little bit, but to no avail. I then tried setting the clock speed to default & it still did it.

I also noticed that after I did my install that the Intel Rapid storage drivers were not loading, so not sure if that is part of the problem or not. I also have my 2 SSD's setup as Raid 0.

My previous card was a GTX 460 v2, which I didn't have any freezing problems.

My system config

Intel I7 2600K
Asrock Z77 Extreme 4
4 - 4 GB 1600 DDR3
4 7200 RPM Sata 3 drives
2 256GB Sata3 SSD
OCZ 650 W power supply

 

[aaksheytalwar]

You don't need a bigger power supply. You need a better power supply. A corsair or seasonic 600 watts is enough.

 

[Tweak155]

As a good check, try individual ram sticks.

 

[Midwayman]

This lockup during games or on the desktop, etc? If its doing it in 2d apps it is extremely unlikely to be power related.

 

[Schmide]

You don't need a bigger power supply. You need a better power supply. A corsair or seasonic 600 watts is enough.

aaksheytalwar you are a tool.

20w difference http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/542?vs=647

On a system that's using less than 350w total loaded and this is happening at idle.

It's most likely not the PSU, as you didn't move power planes.

I would put my money on sata issues. Some boards can be rather finicky with cables and ports. I've seen more than a few issues with cheap cables on sata3 ports.

 

[SolMiester]

system freezing IME is usually memory related or if a lag, disk related.....although why it should start after a fresh install?....do you have all your chipset drivers etc loaded?

 

[Ketchup]

Sounds a lot like a memory problem. It is unusual for a power supply to show those kinds of issues, by themselves. One exception from that would be a traditional hard drive losing power, in which case you could hear it. Are any of the 7200's doing that?

 

[KevinH]

Hi Everyone,

I just purchased a GTX 660 TI & decided to do a fresh install of Windows. Probably a few hours after I was back up & running, I noticed that the computer would just freeze (no bsod, no weird artifacts, etc) to the point of even pressing the caps lock on the keyboard wouldn't reflect the light on the keyboard going on & off.

I thought maybe my OC needed more more juice so I bumped that up a little bit, but to no avail. I then tried setting the clock speed to default & it still did it.

I also noticed that after I did my install that the Intel Rapid storage drivers were not loading, so not sure if that is part of the problem or not. I also have my 2 SSD's setup as Raid 0.

My previous card was a GTX 460 v2, which I didn't have any freezing problems.

My system config

Intel I7 2600K
Asrock Z77 Extreme 4
4 - 4 GB 1600 DDR3
4 7200 RPM Sata 3 drives
2 256GB Sata3 SSD
OCZ 650 W power supply

I was running a TI off an Earthwatts 500.

Keep in mind people have been running 660 TI's on the 330 Watt Alienware X51 system. That's a Dell stock powerbrick.

 

[choliscott]

This is locking up doing simple things such as watching Blogtv or even just a youtube video.

This lockup during games or on the desktop, etc? If its doing it in 2d apps it is extremely unlikely to be power related.

 

[choliscott]

I do have have all of the motherboard drivers, video drivers & MS updates installed.

system freezing IME is usually memory related or if a lag, disk related.....although why it should start after a fresh install?....do you have all your chipset drivers etc loaded?

 

[choliscott]

I figured I would post an update. I decided to take back the card. Along with the freezing issues, I had second thoughts on spending that much on a video card, however even when I put the old card back in I'm still having freezing problems.

When my system was running fine & I pulled out the original video card to put in the new one, I probably ended up swapping some of the sata cables around (unplugged from the hard drive, not the board), but I wouldn't think something like would cause an issue, especially if I had "switched places" with two cables.

Another thing that did happen was when I had plugged everything back in, after installing the new card initially, the 2nd ssd got unplugged, thus the bios raid screen threw up an error, which I plugged it back in, which, after I installed Windows 7, i started seeing the freezing issues.

Figuring it might be a raid issue, I decided to delete the raid 0 & set a new one up using 16kb as the cache (I'm drawing a blank on the correct term), which I was still seeing the same issue, so I tried again & bumped it up to 64kb cache & still had freezing issues.

Next I decided to update the bios & set everything for stock & sure enough doing anything simple as watching Youtube or blogtv, or even just surfing the web, the computer hard freezes. When it freezes, all sound just stops.

One thing I'm trying now, is I set the raid cache to 128kb & seeing how that goes. So far, I only have Win7, MB drivers, MS updates & Security Essentials installed & as I end this, I was going to have the computer run a memory test with all 4 sticks currently installed.

If the mem test shows all 4 sticks passing after running it for hours, would I still need to run each stick separately?

Thanks

 

[jkauff]

I assume you did all this card and cable swapping with the machine unplugged from the wall. As I'm sure you know, shutdown does not kill all the power to the mb. Otherwise you might have fried something.

 

[choliscott]

Yes I did.

I will also add that I ran the memory test for about 9 hours & it came back with no errors.

I assume you did all this card and cable swapping with the machine unplugged from the wall. As I'm sure you know, shutdown does not kill all the power to the mb. Otherwise you might have fried something.

 

[choliscott]

OK for the most part the computer stayed up in running for about 20 hours before it froze again.

When looking at the event viewer around the time it froze, I see the following:

File System Filter 'FileInfo' (6.1, ‎2009‎-‎07‎-‎13T15:34:25.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

WHEA successfully initialized.
4 error sources are active
Error record format version is 10.

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly

These are all within a few seconds of each other.

 

[Schmide]

Maybe get the latest bios?

Maybe intel's rom has an update since they added trim to the Z77?

Edit: Adding I meant above: Raid trim was added with the introduction of the 77 line. To work it requires appropriate OROM (raid rom) and drive firmware. I would update the ssd firmwares and your motherboard's bios.

 

[amenx]

I would try to troubleshoot the issue with one normal drive, no raid setup or anything that introduces further complications to it.

 

[jamudin1]

yesif you overclock