Old pc + new gfx = fail?

Gretzky99

Gretzky99

Gretzky99

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Joined
19 Sep 2008
Posts
20
Hey guys

I recently upgraded my graphics card from a 4xxx series ATI radeon to the HD 5770. However it has made my computer seriously unstable, when I first installed it I got 2 blue screens of death before even getting to windows. After that my pc would just power down whilst completely idle or watching videos (but never in game, or whilst the gfx card was under stress).

I did a complete clear out with various driver cleaners, restarted in safe mode and got it installed, which has made it a bit more stable than it was, but still experiencing some random crashes/restarts, and poor performance in some games.

My question is, could this be a power supply problem or is the 5770 too powerful for the rest of my pc, and where would you guys upgrade in my position?

Im on a budget but should I start looking at saving towards the new sockets (1156 or AM3) or just patch it up with a new processor?

Thanks for any advice :)

Specs:
Intel E5200 Dual Core @ 2.50GHz
IP43 (socket 775)
4 Gig of DDR2 ram
Radeon HD 5770 (latest drivers)
450w tagan psu
 
Thanks for the quick responses.

@Skellig, thanks for the link and info...I'll have a look for a good psu

@jms198 I replaced the HD 4850. I looked into bios updates the other night and spent about 6 hours trying to make sense of it. I dont have a floppy drive which makes updating the bios a complete nightmare!
 
Skellig said:
Very likely it's your PSU.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5770-review-test/11

"The card requires you to have a 500 Watt power supply unit at minimum if you use it in a high-end system. That power supply needs to have (in total accumulated) at least 40 Amps available on the +12 volts rails."
Click to expand...

From the same article..


System in IDLE = 228 Watts
System with GPU in FULL Stress = 321 Watts

I would expect a fully working tagen 450watt to be able to run that setup.
 
If it worked with the 4850 then it should be fine with the 5770. Try a fresh install of Windows? Using various driver cleaners looks like it's asking for problems.
 
4850 & 5770 have around the same power requirement, if memory serves. So my guess would be a driver issue somewhere, as you've already tried removing old drivers, and installing new ones, I would suggest installing a fresh copy of windows onto a empty HDD, then you can see if you still have problems with a fresh install, without loosing your current install. Although you could always just save all of the data you want to keep, and reinstall onto that HDD.

Power I wouldn't have thought is the problem, unless your Tagan PSU is bad (I'm not familiar with Tagan PSUs), as I've had a [email protected], 4870, and about 6 HDDs running off a corsair 450W quite happily.
 
Thanks for all the input.

@Orcvader: I used the official ATI uninstal software and CCleaner, which has worked great for me in the past.

My psu has been great, but it has lasted for about 5-7 years now so it might be on its last legs. I've ordered a 650w psu, which will at least be useful when I upgrade in the future.

I still have a feeling that the graphics card is just too powerful for a 2.50ghz processor, and maybe ddr2 ram is holding the whole machine back...

I guess I'll try a fresh instal of windows...get the new psu in and see how badly my wallet is going to have to suffer. It's a shame sockets change so often cause my next upgrade is going to have to be mobo, cpu and ram at least :(

Thanks again guys
 
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