Rig Rebuild! And Problems!

[dodge8604]

Okay, updated my rig a little bit, had some extra money to spend....

EVGA Nvidia 680i SE SLI
xFx 8500 GT
2GB Corsair DDR2-667
BFG 650W
(old stuff, 3.6GHz P4, Sound Blaster)

Alright, I got the 680i out of the box and laid it out. Hooked up the 24 pin, and the 4 pin. Stuck in my CPU, a stick of RAM, and my video card (while outside of the case). I powered it up and it seemed to run fine but about 10-20 seconds into the post (which it posted to BIOS and all that just fine) it shut down on its own. Although the little blue light in the top right hand corner did stay on. Then I checked if it would do it again and it did everytime that I tried. I took out the battery and set the jumpers to clear for about 45 minutes, came back and still no luck. Everything seems to be compatible, one thing I'm not sure of is the PSU. My VGA says I need at least a 300w psu to run (which I have) and my 680i says that I need at least a 500w to run (which I have) I asked around a bit and it sounds like I may have to buy something that would be more that 800W???? Not sure really, I didn't think it would stack Watts like that, my old rig seemed to run fine.

Please if anyone has any clue what I should do let me know, I'd like to get this rig back up ASAP.

Thanks in advance! You guys have always been here to help!

 

[burtsbees]

Does the mobo have integrated video? If so, hook the monitor up to the mobo, and unplug the video card completely. If not, do you have another video card to try? It sounds like the thing is power hungry. If the video card wants 500W, I would say your 650W psu is NOT enough. Try without the video card first.

Burt

 

[dodge8604]

Hey thanks for the quick reply, (No it doesn't have integrated video) but yes I tried it without the card in and it still shut down after th 10-20 seconds, I tried a 7300GS in there too and it still shut down. Everything is pointing to the PSU but right now I'm between paychecks so I guess you could say that I'm hoping and praying that it is some quick fix that I'm overlooking

So then the PSU is my main suspect?

 

[dodge8604]

Also, if the PSU is the the flaw, should I be looking right around 800W for my next one or should I be going for alot more???

THanks again in advance!

 

[burtsbees]

A lot of mid-line servers I work on don't generally have higher psu's than 800W, and were talking two and four dual-core Xeons, running at 3.2GHz/core, with 4GB RAM, and some of the Sun boxes have 8-16 procs, and 16-32GB RAM, with at least 8 72GB hard drives, SCSI running at 10K rpm's, RAID5.
This can be hard to diagnose---usually if it is the cpu, I would think it would reboot, not shut down. Does the cpu get really hot? Have you ensured the heatsink is attached properly? Have you reseated the proc? Are you using thermal compound (though I have run a 3.2 GHz Xeon without any successfully for an hour, but those servers have fans like windtunnels!)?
It could be the psu, or even the mobo. You can try plugging the psu into a different computer, if you can.
However, here is another post with very similar symptoms...

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1400067&page=1

Perhaps he/she will find a solution, and offer some help.

Burt

 

[wubba68]

dodge,

This may be no help to you but I had the same thing happen to me a couple of years ago. It ended up that I had one of the front panel connectors hooked up incorrectly. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[paparazi]

The components listed would run quite comfortably on a GOOD QUALITY 450watt PSU, the only real power hog is that 3.6 P4.
Look at these system power consumption figures:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353&p=4

You can see from this info that in a fairly basic setup like yours, the total consumption is unlikely to even come close to 300watts.
The Nvidia 850GT isn't going to take that much and combined with the memory, HDD and motherboard chipset this isn't a particularly power hungry setup.

Obviously there is a need for some reserve so that the PSU isn't working at 90% all the time, but a 30% plus buffer should be fine which would make a good 450watt unit ideal.

It seems everyone is paranoid about having enough power when what they should be primarily concerned with is QUALITY.

Give me a good quality 450watt Jeantech/Seasonic/Antec/Enermax/FSP/Sparkle/Zalman/
Thermaltake/OCZ/Coolermaster/ChannelWell Technology
Over a 650watt
OEM generic cheepo ANY DAY!

Manufacturers are feeding off our insecurities and in most cases we are buying PSU's that are double the power we need.
Sure, it is better to have something in reserve but you can't be serious about "needing" an 800watt PSU? this kind of power is in the realms of dual 8800GTX SLi setups.
Martin



We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[kmcferrin]

Hold on now paparazi, you're making too much sense! Stop it!

Seriously, he's right though. Quality over quantity. While the wattage numbers make for great advertising (my 1000W PSU is better than your 850W PSU!!!), the more important factor is the PSU's ability to provide clean, consistent current on all rails.

Now it is certainly possible that someone could buy a cheap 600W PSU that can't provide enough current to power all of the components. It would also be possible for that same person to buy a quality, efficient 500W PSU that works just fine. It's also possible that that same person could buy a cheap 800W PSU from the same manufacturer, and because the PSU is "33% higher rated" than the 600W model it is better able to provide clean current and the "problem" goes away. And of course the person in that situation is going to think that they just needed an 800W PSU all along, never realizing what the issue really was.

My last PSU was an Enermax 450W, and it powered an Athlon 64 3000+, 2 sticks of memory, a Radeon x1950 Pro, 2 WD 7200 RPM SATA drives, 2 DVD-RW/CDRW drives, sound card, 3 extra illuminated case fans, a cold cathode lamp, and numerous USB devices without a problem. I suspect that I was running close to the limit, so when I did some upgrades recently I bumped it to a 550W.

 

[paparazi]

I suppose me going on doesn't really help in this case.
Can I suggest a few more ideas:

Has this motherboard got any extra power connectors to it? ie: 8pin Intel? or Molex connectors etc

Is the heatsink base properly coated with a thin smear of paste? are the clips properly pulled down?

Is the CPU fan connected to the correct fan header

Is this high performance ram?

Have you plugged anything else into it? ie: addon cards, front panel switches etc something that could be effecting it.
From what I've been told, BFG PSU's are decent enough quality, so you shouldn't be having problems but thats not to say that it isn't faulty.
Martin






We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[dodge8604]

Thanks for all the replies, and I'll try to cover as many as possible....

Okay, the few times I did get to the BIOS I saw that the CPU was running around 55 degrees celcius, yes I have Thermal compound, it is from Best Buy but I guess its doing good enough.

Wubba68: I didn't hook up any of the front panel connectors, it was sitting outside of the case and I had only the necessities hooked in.

The MoBo does have an 8 pin CPU plug, but it will take a 4 pin in the right side(looked that up on the EVGA website) the other 4 are required if you run an SLI setup. As far as I know, I correctly put the thermal compound on, then stuck on the heatsink, took it back off and took off the excess. and my heatsink has screws, not clips but it seems to be fine. Yes the CPU fan is hooked up correctly. and yes my RAM is high performance...i think.


Also, I was running a 480W Antec before the BFG but I bought the new BFG just to see if the Antec wasn't running right.

Actually now that I think about it, my heatsink has a mounting bracket that goes on the rear of the MoBo and when I mounted the heatsink, there was a small square of solder material that almost prevented me from mounting the heatsink all together because it held the bracket off the surface a good bit and I mounted it anyways.....the bracket is metal, do you all think maybe I am grounding out the CPU or something like that? I mean its on the backside of the MoBo right where the CPU is so maybe??? Not sure, I'll go get a new heatsink and fan and see if it works with that? I'll keep experimenting, safely of course, but in the meantime, please keep ideas coming, I appreciate this alot fellas!

 

[dodge8604]

Also, so if I figure this out, I should def. keep the BFG PSU so that I'm not running maxed on my Power?

-US Army-
-82nd Airborne-
-Infantry-
enough said.....

 

[paparazi]

You are quite right, that metal mounting bracket absolutely must not touch (metal to metal) on the underside of the PCB or components.
As I said, keep the BFG by all means but by my calculations your old Antec 480watt was far from being maxed and probably had a good 150watt in reserve (over 25%) when under full load, so under normal conditions would have been fairly comfortable with you current setup.
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[dodge8604]

HEY! Got it working! Covered that metal to metal thing on the back of the mobo with some of that rubber stuff they cover some parts with in laptops, to keep it from touching and it worked! THanks alot for the help......

Now if only I could get my VGA drivers installed.....

-US Army-
-82nd Airborne-
-Infantry-
enough said.....

 

[paparazi]

Wayhay! great news! I'm pleased for you matey.
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.