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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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Old 06-22-2006, 03:41 AM   #1
cs-cam
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Registered: May 2004
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PSU load


I've been experiencing very average video performance of late, by average I mean my 7900GT is yielding similar framerates in Nexuiz as my 6600GT did in a slower machine.

I've sort of dealt with it but in a moment of intelligence 5 minutes ago it occurred to me that this started around the same time I added a couple of new drives to my machine. My PSU is rated at 430W and came with my Thermaltake case and I'm lead to believe that this isn't stunning power. Is there a way I can see how much load my PSU is under so I can figure out whether this problem can be solved by a new PSU or if something else is the matter.

Here is some output from mbmon, absolutely no idea if it's of any relevance but I figured it can't hurt.
Code:
[ sylvester :: cam ]-> mbmon -r    
TEMP0 : 52.0
TEMP1 : 54.0
TEMP2 : 39.0
FAN0  : 1360
FAN1  : 1371
FAN2  : 19852
VC0   :  +1.33
VC1   :  +1.18
V33   :  +3.31
V50P  :  +5.08
V12P  : +11.61
V12N  :  -5.23
V50N  :  -4.07
It may be irrelevant bu nvidia-settings is reporting very wrong figures for my clock speed and thermal but nvclock shows the correct numbers. I've reinstalled the driver, I'm running 2.6.17 and I rolled back to 2.6.16 and same problem so it's not the kernel or driver at fault.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated
 
Old 06-23-2006, 08:36 AM   #2
Oxagast
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Have you actually tried pulling the new drives back out and checking it to see if it does right again? Some crappy (cheap) power supplies are rated at a particular wattage, and they will do that, but they're not very stable at it, and don't last too long. Anyway, you could try removing the drives and see if it makes a difference, and before you go off and buy a new PSU, as they're a bit expensive, you could try seeing if a friend had a higher quality, higher wattage PSU you could borrow to test it with the drives in there to make sure it's not just something about them (although I can't imagine what else a drive being in there would have effect on a graphics card through). I'm thinking it's the settings thing on the card though, although I can't be of much help with that, I don't have a nvidia card. I do know if the power supply acts korkey it can make everything else in the machine act korkey though if the parts arn't getting steady currents/voltages. It may also be that sence your cards not getting optimal power out of the PSU it's automatically resetting it's self at lower performance to stabalize.
 
Old 06-23-2006, 09:06 AM   #3
cs-cam
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Thanks for the reply. I turned the machine off and tried simply plugging the card into a different set of molex connectors and it went back to normal and I was thrilled. This was yesterday, today it's back to crappy performance with nothing changed.

I'll see if I can borrow a power supply and try it, thats a good suggestion thanks I'll see what luck I have.
 
Old 06-26-2006, 03:54 AM   #4
cs-cam
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Okay, borrowed a 600W and everything is fine so I guess the PSU just wasn't up to the task. No biggie, I've been told by a very computer-smart friend to get an Antec Neo and a guy from a shop who came into my work suggested a Antec TruePower. Aside from the extra branding the TruePower has (all that True[InsertWordHere]...) and of course the $8 on the price sticker, is there any major difference between the two I should know about?

Anyone have either and feel like telling me how great/crappy it is?
 
  


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