Curse

Tachyon · Jan 25, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by swiftygem

I think the PSU is just fine.

What makes you say that? Do you have a 8800GTS running on a 500W PSU or are you just guessing? Or have you been around to the OP's house and examined the PSU with a multimeter to check it's functioning correctly?

As for what it says on the box, it says OXO on buses but they don't sell it.

swiftygem · Jan 25, 2007, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azagoth

What makes you say that? Do you have a 8800GTS running on a 500W PSU or are you just guessing? Or have you been around to the OP's house and examined the PSU with a multimeter to check it's functioning correctly?

No. Have you?

I don't have the card, I'm currently looking to buy a system with it, so I looked up a few links:
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=405
600W PSU running 2 cards in SLI. You claim 600+W is recommended for one.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1133846
Some other info, one quote mentioning the 8800GTS running on 400W PSU fine.

AOD_EaSyKiLL · Jan 25, 2007, 09:06 PM // 21:06

An 8800 can run on less than 400W, but, people shouldn't take a chance on that with a $700 video card. Plus, when you add in HD's, CD, Sound, Network, floppy, processor, etc. and a marginal 400w power supply isn't going to cut it.

A better power supply is a wise item to check. If he has a friend with a good one, it only takes a little while to test it. Or, If he plans on keeping the rig for a while a new power supply from a good company is a very good investment anyways, esspecially when you have some expensive high end components.

1 capictor shorts, sends too much voltage to card = $700 flushed

Tachyon · Jan 26, 2007, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by swiftygem

I don't have the card, I'm currently looking to buy a system with it, so I looked up a few links:
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=405
600W PSU running 2 cards in SLI. You claim 600+W is recommended for one.

OK, good luck. I look forward to helping you out at a later date when you post about how your new 8800 isn't working correctly "for some reason"!

600W running two 8800's? I just wondered if you'd noticed the fact that those dual 8800's aren't actually being used. You can easily tell this by the fact that all four DVI sockets are unused and clearly visible. Here's a question for you, how much more power do you think they'll consume if they're actually being used in a graphics intensive game? I also guess I should mention that the thing isn't even cased, so all the little additions to the power usage aren't taken into account either.

Actually, I'd like to see the temps of that system once it's encased in whatever case will take it and allow sufficient airflow.

That said though, in all my 25+ years of building, using and programming computers I have never once tested the reliability, stability and power consumption of anything when they're not in use. To accurately gauge the consumption you have to fire them up and put them to use.

Amarande · Jan 26, 2007, 04:22 AM // 04:22

I think the software (either GW or the nVidia drivers) is probably to blame somewhere, personally. I've also had some issues over the past few months with the video in Guild Wars (and am unable to reproduce these issues in other games, as far as I've been able to tell; nor do they make themselves apparent in such things as 3DMark or the such).

I don't have an 8800GTS but I do have another nVidia card which makes the driver possibility a very real one. Here are specs:

Raidmax Aurora 580W PSU
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
2GB DDR400 RAM, single channel (I believe one stick is Crucial and the other 3 are Kingston)
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
WD 200GB IDE internal hard drive
WD 80GB hard drive connected via USB enclosure (has separate power brick)
LG Lightscribe DVD burner
Lite-On DVD-RW
Two eVGA GeForce 7600 GT's running in SLI
Turtle Beach Riviera PCI sound card
Intel PRO/1000 GT Gigabit Ethernet PCI card
ViewSonic VA912b 19" LCD monitor (using DVI)
Windows XP Pro SP2, fully updated

I run GW at 1280x1024 with max graphics settings.

Normally this works fine (I normally get from 40-60 fps depending on the detail level, though I do sometimes see significant framerate drops in heavily populated town/outpost districts which go away after changing district or zoning into guild hall/explorable/less populated outpost etc.). However, there are a few glitches I've noticed at times -

*1 Sometimes characters (more rarely objects) turn into white boxes. I then get Repairing Data Archive ... on restarting GW, after which things are OK.
*2 Sometimes a severe frame rate drop happens, even in lightly populated explorables where there is no apparent reason for this. It will not go away without restarting GW. Sometimes I get Repairing Data Archive after this, other times the frame rate comes back to life if I simply restart GW.
*3 On occasion I have even seen the system seize up entirely while playing GW. It happens very suddenly, first I stop moving (as if I am about to get an error 007) but unlike an error 007 situation I can't even rotate the camera. Keys do not respond. Only the mouse cursor moves (but clicking does nothing). Shortly after I will hear a 'beep' from the PC speaker and the mouse cursor stops moving as well. As far as I can tell I get a clean Windows shutdown however, since if I hold in the power button to turn off the PC then power the system up again, I do not get a "Windows wasn't shut down properly" message. This only ever happened to my knowledge when GW was fullscreen but I don't run it windowed often.
*4 On occasion, when running GW in fullscreen mode the mouse cursor would flicker rapidly (though seemed to function normally). If GW was then windowed, the flickering would stop, but it would come back if GW was re-maximized.

Problem 1 and most of the time 2 would clear themselves up just by restarting the GW application. Problem 4 required a system reboot - restarting GW would not help. Naturally problem 3 results in a system crash so a reboot is necessary there too.

I have not seen problems 3 or 4 in the past week or two, I wonder if they were related to bugs in GW itself (as I mentioned I am unable to reproduce similar problems in other games or in 3D stress tests). Problems 1 and 2 still manifest themselves on occasion though ... the first one appears to be a corruption of gw.dat (not sure why it corrupts, though, but is easily fixed by restarting GW and allowing it to repair the archive), the second one looks like it might SOMETIMES be such a corruption but other times I am unable to discern the cause at all as GW doesn't do anything unusual on restart.

Hard drive space is not an issue; GW resides on the 200GB drive, which has 125GB free space still. The RAM has been memtested. Again, other games do not exhibit problems.

Forceware drivers 91.47 WHQL, 92.91 beta, 93.71 WHQL, and 93.81 beta have all exhibited these issues (I tried reinstalling the drivers and using different versions while attempting to diagnose problem 3 and the incidence of that one at least did not change); in any case, I need to stay with 93.71 or later, as Neverwinter Nights 2 does not properly support SLI without at least that driver version ...

Tachyon · Jan 26, 2007, 04:30 AM // 04:30

You say that you only get 40-60fps? You don't by any chance have V-Sync turned on do you? On this PC with a single 7900GS 512MB (510/1450) I get back at least 100fps but 95% of the time it's around the 160fps mark, dropping to 70ish in populated areas like Sunspear Sanctuary.

I don't have GW installed on my works PC though so I can't compare it, but I imagine that'd scream with it's 2 x 8800GTX 768MB cards.

swiftygem · Jan 26, 2007, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azagoth

I just wondered if you'd noticed the fact that those dual 8800's aren't actually being used. You can easily tell this by the fact that all four DVI sockets are unused and clearly visible. Here's a question for you, how much more power do you think they'll consume if they're actually being used in a graphics intensive game?

Really? Where did they get these numbers from then?

8800GTS SLI @513/1584 stock
PC/Windows start up = 277.3W (1.286A)
Stressprime Orthos Small FFTs = 297.4W (1.314A)
3Dmark06 = 370.9W (1.629A)
PCMark05 = 322.4W (1.426A)

Hockster · Jan 26, 2007, 10:19 AM // 10:19

Those numbers are being pulled from a test system sitting out in the open. Put it in a typical case and use it normally. You'll need a few extra fans for cooling, have to run the audio and NIC subsytems and probably have some USB devices added on. Go ahead and try and run a 100% working setup with a barely adequate PSU, and you will most definately have issues. Any system upgrades will just kill it.

Basically, quit pulling shit out of your ass and posing it as advice.

swiftygem · Jan 26, 2007, 10:45 AM // 10:45

Awww, you're so polite, man. I'm not advising anything. I'm just saying that if nVidia says that you need a 400W PSU with 26A on 12V for a typical system, then they probably have a reason to. And if 600W PSU can run two of these cards on full load, overclocked, then few fans in the case aren't going to change it.
Anyone can buy what they want, I'm just pointing out the fact that it's not completely necessary. And that the OP might be disappointed after finding out he just wasted money on PSU that doesn't make a difference. That's what happend to me 2 years ago when I built my computer and there was a problem with it - I was advised that the problem is weak PSU for sure. Well it wasn't and I wasted about 150 euro on a new PSU.