Associate
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2011
- Posts
- 10
Hello,
Hoping you chaps can help. I built this system on a budget back in December: -
-AMD phenom II x4 955
-CPU cooling: Arctic Freezer 7 pro rev 2
-Gigabyte MA77OT-UD3 mobo
-Gigabyte GTX 460 OC
- 1TB SATA II HD
- Corsair 4Gb XMS RAM
- Powercool 550W "Mod eXtreme" PSU
- Windows 7 premium
I best introduce myself. 1st time system build. PC gaming roots that have been playing consoles for too long. Intend to get back into PC gaming with as modern a set-up as possible with the hope of upgrading when possible. Also have an interest in electronics (when applied to the electric guitar particularly building effects and amplifiers
) but am very much a beginner with a lot to learn.
All went very well and for around £440 quid was very happy. However wasn't convinced it was performing as it should as would reset at key points of games and during max load e.g in Crysis for example.
Anyway I went about benchmarking with the hope of overclocking. Anyway the main point I'm coming to is that I fail (pc resets itself) Furmark stability tests (also Kombuster) and always have. I never did anything about this as it wasn't really a problem in the day to day. But now I wish to overclock and demonstrate stability it is a problem.
I'm currently running 3.6Ghz OC on the CPU which seems to be going well with temps almost right (upgrading cpu cooling again soon) however the Furmark problem happens with all components at stock settings even when GPU is underclocked.
The longest my set-up has survived Furmark was 10mins but an average of 3 mins normally kills me. GPU Temp only reaches 70-75 degrees C before the pc resets. So im pretty happy its not the temp. After some reading online I started focusing on the PSU as the source of my problem - the very budget Powercool Mod eXtreme 550W modular. Now then I've been looking into the voltage drop that occurs during the loading and drop in voltage when starting and running Furmark (before the inevitable pc crash) i googled this and actually used a digital multimeter rather than trusting any software reading, as per this instructable:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/46960.aspx
The result was that my 12V PSU reading via a molex connector was around 11.98-12V during idle then when starting furmark droped rapidly to around 11.65 and even down to 11.58 volts (this is quite similar to read out by CPU ID HD monitor, good programme!). I even ran furmark and prime95 at the same time but didnt really cause much more of a voltage drop than previously stated. PSU voltage tolerance is generally acceptable around 10% right? This is not even a 5% decrease in voltage during load so wtf? lol. Any other suggestions as to whats wrong?
My questions to you are
-Am i barking up the wrong tree completely?
Recently installed most recent GTX 460 drivers 266.58 with no difference.
Checked PSU lead into the GTX 460 were properly inserted also didnt change anything.
-Is the PSU big enough at 550W for my budget rig?
I want to avoid buying a new PSU if possible (but looks like the only way to convince myself this cheapy PSU isn't to blame).
-Do you think the GPU could be faulty?
-I really wanna avoid re-installing windows too!!
Any feedback is much appreciated. I'll try any suggestions and re-post any findings for any1 having similar problems in the future.
Many thanks
Hoping you chaps can help. I built this system on a budget back in December: -
-AMD phenom II x4 955
-CPU cooling: Arctic Freezer 7 pro rev 2
-Gigabyte MA77OT-UD3 mobo
-Gigabyte GTX 460 OC
- 1TB SATA II HD
- Corsair 4Gb XMS RAM
- Powercool 550W "Mod eXtreme" PSU
- Windows 7 premium
I best introduce myself. 1st time system build. PC gaming roots that have been playing consoles for too long. Intend to get back into PC gaming with as modern a set-up as possible with the hope of upgrading when possible. Also have an interest in electronics (when applied to the electric guitar particularly building effects and amplifiers
) but am very much a beginner with a lot to learn. All went very well and for around £440 quid was very happy. However wasn't convinced it was performing as it should as would reset at key points of games and during max load e.g in Crysis for example.
Anyway I went about benchmarking with the hope of overclocking. Anyway the main point I'm coming to is that I fail (pc resets itself) Furmark stability tests (also Kombuster) and always have. I never did anything about this as it wasn't really a problem in the day to day. But now I wish to overclock and demonstrate stability it is a problem.
I'm currently running 3.6Ghz OC on the CPU which seems to be going well with temps almost right (upgrading cpu cooling again soon) however the Furmark problem happens with all components at stock settings even when GPU is underclocked.
The longest my set-up has survived Furmark was 10mins but an average of 3 mins normally kills me. GPU Temp only reaches 70-75 degrees C before the pc resets. So im pretty happy its not the temp. After some reading online I started focusing on the PSU as the source of my problem - the very budget Powercool Mod eXtreme 550W modular. Now then I've been looking into the voltage drop that occurs during the loading and drop in voltage when starting and running Furmark (before the inevitable pc crash) i googled this and actually used a digital multimeter rather than trusting any software reading, as per this instructable:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/46960.aspx
The result was that my 12V PSU reading via a molex connector was around 11.98-12V during idle then when starting furmark droped rapidly to around 11.65 and even down to 11.58 volts (this is quite similar to read out by CPU ID HD monitor, good programme!). I even ran furmark and prime95 at the same time but didnt really cause much more of a voltage drop than previously stated. PSU voltage tolerance is generally acceptable around 10% right? This is not even a 5% decrease in voltage during load so wtf? lol. Any other suggestions as to whats wrong?
My questions to you are
-Am i barking up the wrong tree completely?
Recently installed most recent GTX 460 drivers 266.58 with no difference.
Checked PSU lead into the GTX 460 were properly inserted also didnt change anything.
-Is the PSU big enough at 550W for my budget rig?
I want to avoid buying a new PSU if possible (but looks like the only way to convince myself this cheapy PSU isn't to blame).
-Do you think the GPU could be faulty?
-I really wanna avoid re-installing windows too!!
Any feedback is much appreciated. I'll try any suggestions and re-post any findings for any1 having similar problems in the future.
Many thanks
