• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

GTX 280 crashing system?

Jurassic Pork

Jurassic Pork

Jurassic Pork

Associate
Joined
8 Jan 2009
Posts
27
Location
London
Hi,

I'm having problems with my 280. Everytime I run any game it reboots my system after 5 or so minutes?

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers and older drivers etc but it doesn't seem to do anything.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a system thing or could it be a faulty card?
 
Its a 600W. not sure of make and model. I thought 600w would be enough? I did have to use a few molex adapter cables so I could power the 6 & 8 pin ports. Would that be an issue?
 
Jurassic Pork said:
Its a 600W. not sure of make and model. I thought 600w would be enough? I did have to use a few molex adapter cables so I could power the 6 & 8 pin ports. Would that be an issue?
Click to expand...

Bingo imo, one thing you will learn is that it's not the overall wattage of psu that you should look for it's the quality of the rails. PSU's are one thing you should never skimp on, worst case scenario is that it could blow taking out mobo/ram/cpu and gfx if your really unlucky! I know a lot of Qtec's suffered this problem imo always get a name branded psu e.g corsair
 
Jurassic Pork said:
Its a 600W. not sure of make and model. I thought 600w would be enough? I did have to use a few molex adapter cables so I could power the 6 & 8 pin ports. Would that be an issue?
Click to expand...

Could well be. If you can take a look at the PSU and let us know make/model it would give us a better idea of quality and power ratings.

What other specs for the PC e.g CPU, number of HDs etc as these all have a bearing on whether the PSU can reliably run the 280GTX?
 
As above..

Its the amps you need to be checking. There will be a sticker on the side of your power supply listing them.

+12v +5v etc.. there will be an amp rating under them.
 
As Harris says not all PSUs are born equal even though the numbers seem to suggest it sometimes.

If yours hasn't got dedicated PCI-e cables chances are it's either too old or a budget model that can't supply the power needed for a top end card.
 
harris1986 said:
Bingo imo, one thing you will learn is that it's not the overall wattage of psu that you should look for it's the quality of the rails. PSU's are one thing you should never skimp on, worst case scenario is that it could blow taking out mobo/ram/cpu and gfx if your really unlucky! I know a lot of Qtec's suffered this problem imo always get a name branded psu e.g corsair
Click to expand...


I didn't know you could blow the system? Card's coming straight out whn I get home!!

Thanks for all your answers.

Not sure of make model etc of PSU. I'll post the specs on here when I get home.

I'm running two HDD's on an asus pn32-e mobo with a Q6600 & 8gb (4*2gb) OF OC ram. its DDR2 6200 I think. 1 dvd drive.


From what you've all said it seems to be the PSU. Can anyone recommend a decent PSU. Money not really an object if its such an important part.

editr: 1 with dedicated pci-e power cable would be useful
 
Last edited:
and yes... A Psu can easily kill your graphics card. If the card isn't getting enough juice it can die very soon.
 
But it's an old design now and more energy efficient models are on the market. Personally I'd aim to get one with at least 85% efficiency as with your parts it will save some useful pennies :)

Update: I've been using one of these in mine for the past 12 months: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...=&name=Hiper 630W HPU-4M630 SLi Certified PSU

It's 85% efficient. I've also bought these for friends and they're all going strong. Hiper can have a bad reputation on here as one of their previous models have apparently blown up on users! But the model I've link too is not that model :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all your advice. Had a crazy year start at work with 3 suppliers going into admin so gaming's dropped off the map here. Have looked at this PSU

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-067-TT&tool=3

Its 1500W lots of PCI-e connectors (i smell another GTX280 always wanted an SLI setup) and seems to be pretty future proof. How do I tell if it will fit in my case? i can't find dimension specs to measure it. Not sure what size my case is either :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom