9600GT power specs wrong?

Like other people I am encountering on the support forums my shiny new 9600GT is freaking out at unpredictable times. Without warning it will blackscreen my computer with the sound endlessly looping in the background. See here at evga and here at nvidia.

The current thinking is that it is a power issue. Even though evga specs it out as needing a 400w power supply the cure seems to be more power. Alot more! So I am seeing if Newegg will let me swap it for the HD 3850 people had been suggesting in my other thread where I asked for options for replacing my old 6600GT.

I don't expect this will be a problem for the typical [H] user who I expect has a very serious PSU but this was an upgrade for my old Dell with it's mildly upgraded 430W PSU and it's just not equal to the task.

EDIT: Crap. Never mind me. I see the 3850 requires a 450W PSU. I'll just see if Newegg will let me return the 9600GT outright and go back to my 6600GT.

Not power related, obviously driver issue or bad GPU (too high clocks maybe).

That's been part of the discussion. I've read about people who lowered clock speed with no improvement, but then hooked it up to a much beefier PSU and seemed to fix things.

evga is RMA'ing several of the cards but it's really not clear what's going on. Either way I need to get rid of this card but it seems with my PSU I cannot expect to run any modern cards.

EDIT: Ok someone in the evga thread said that the "400W PSU" rating that evga uses is incomplete. It requires 26 amps from the +12V part of the PSU. Mine provides 18A. So... how the hell could I play Oblivion for 2 hours last night without a problem if it's so underpowered? Gah. This just confuses me. Either way my PSU is obviously no good for this card so I am just asking for trouble trying to keep using it.

I am waiting on an Asus EN9600GT 512 to come in, but I did go the extra Step and beef up my PSU to a Cooler Master Real Power Pro RS750 to go with it. So Power won't be an issue, even if this will be be mated to an E6850 it should perform nicely. I'll Post again when it's up and running, and Post my Opinion on it then.

Mine's in my secondary system with a 380W Antec supply. No problems so far. Only one HDD, on Optical drive in that system, so not much other load, but I've played a ton of games on it so far with no issues.

It seems quite hit or miss. I was able to go through the 3dMark suite no problem. But I started getting scattered blackscreens with Oblivion.

With as many complaints as I've seen I just sent it back to newegg. Now I need to find a modern video card (better than my old 6600GT) that at the least will definitely work with my 400W 18a PSU.

It's not that your power supply is too weak. The G92 is incompatible with a lot of power supplies (True Power Quatro, anyone?), and the 9600's G94 chip is closely related to G92. Your 400 may be having trouble, where your neighbor's 350W does fine because its AC->DC circuitry is different.

rbanzai said:

It seems quite hit or miss. I was able to go through the 3dMark suite no problem. But I started getting scattered blackscreens with Oblivion.

With as many complaints as I've seen I just sent it back to newegg. Now I need to find a modern video card (better than my old 6600GT) that at the least will definitely work with my 400W 18a PSU.

Click to expand...

400watts but only 18amps?? also Im confused because in your op you said it was a 430watt psu. that must be one pos psu. my 300watt psu that came in my HP comp has 19amps on the 12v. if your psu really only has 18v total for the 12v then that is likely your problem. to be honest I wouldnt waste any money on video card for a system with a pentuim 4.

Sorry, it's indeed 430. I checked Thermaltake's website. I don't know much about PSU components but it looks like the 12V rating is 18 amps: +12V Max Load 18A.

rbanzai said:

Sorry, it's indeed 430. I checked Thermaltake's website. I don't know much about PSU components but it looks like the 12V rating is 18 amps: +12V Max Load 18A.

Click to expand...

then that indeed is a very poor psu to be powering any graphics card above an 8600gt. 430watts may sound good at first glance but 18amps is not enough for reliable performance with a 9600gt or similar card.

At the time I bought it my only goal was to replace the dying factory Dell PSU so it seemed to do the job. But I see now that many PSUs are rather light on the 12V rating no matter the wattage. Even the older cards seem to require at least 22A.

So... I will just shelve this plan for now. If I want to revisit I see now I will have to buy a much beefier PSU and that's a whole research job on its own.