BFG says I have PSU Issues, Yall Agree?

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Finneal

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Nov 15, 2005
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Greetings everyone,

Well I've been having issues with my new build. I have an Opteron 170, 2 GB OCZ Platinum memory (1Gx2|D400 OCZ4002048ELDCPE), a DFI Lan Party Ultra D, a BFG 7800 GTOC, and an Enermax Liberty 500W PSU.

Prime 95 and Memtest run fine for 24 hours straight. When I start gaming tho, I run into random game crashes, BSODs, and machine lockups/reboots. Sometimes I play for hours with no problems. Other times, I have issues after only 30 minutes.

Since I only have the problems when doing video intensive applications, I tried BFG tech support. They asked about my PSU and asked what the current on the 12V rails was. The manual says 12V1 is 22A and 12V2 is 22A. He said that was my problem as they require 26A on the 12V rail.

I'm not sure how dual rails work and whether I really do have enough power, but I know you guys know so did I buy the wrong PSU?

Is this likely whats causing my problem?

Thanks in advance and please let me know if I can provide any additional information to help you guys figure this one out.

Finneal
 
actually i would bet it IS the PSU. i along with many others have been having trouble with the liberties and the Ultra-D.. swap the PSU and try it again. your problem sounds like the same EXACT problem we were all having. 2D is rock solid and as soon as you turn on a 3D app it dies a few minutes later...
 
A 500W should be able to run a single 7800 very easily...I don't think its a bum PSU. But...I note that you said "checked voltages in the manual". What does the BIOS report for all of the rails?
 
Assuming he had the 500 watt liberty with the 12v1 at 22 amps and the 12v2 at 22 amps, would the 620 watt liberty make a difference?

I have this very same problem with an x1900xtx and a Liberty 500 watt. Computer is quite solid at 1.35 volts CPU and crashes only once a week. Run something like x3 rolling demo, the comp crashes in minutes. Same problems are amplified at 1.525 volts CPU.
 
A Name brand 500 watt should be able to handle all that,my 425 is taking on the load of everything in my sig just fine.
 
Manny Calavera said:
A Name brand 500 watt should be able to handle all that,my 425 is taking on the load of everything in my sig just fine.
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Yeah, but you have a PCP&C....thats not your avarage PSU..:)

I have the 510 Deluxe...love that baby....
 
Yes thats true (Best psu I have ever used,I have a 650 watt Enermax in my GF's comp,that craps out[random reboots] when it has the exact same setup attached to it and I runheavy 3d games) but that Liberty isnt exactly junk eithier,it should be just fine.Its not like he is running an sli system,or tons of hd's
 
i would chalk it up to a incompatablity between his Ultra-D and the liberty..
 
Manny Calavera said:
Yes thats true (Best psu I have ever used,I have a 650 watt Enermax in my GF's comp,that craps out[random reboots] when it has the exact same setup attached to it and I runheavy 3d games) but that Liberty isnt exactly junk eithier,it should be just fine.Its not like he is running an sli system,or tons of hd's
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OT, but That isn't charactoristic of the psu to just crap out like that. Run memtest86+ and report back.
 
Sounds PSU to me as sometimes he is fine and other he is not... ram tends to mess up all the time if it's bad... on top of that PSU can be cheeper then getting all new ram...
 
1) The Enermax liberty 500w has a combined 32amps on the 12v. !2v rails are not usually additive.
2) The 22amps figure is what each rail is capped at and deducts from the combined value.
3) I would bet on DFI's notoriously questionable design choices resulting in problems.
 
Spectre said:
1) The Enermax liberty 500w has a combined 32amps on the 12v. !2v rails are not usually additive.
2) The 22amps figure is what each rail is capped at and deducts from the combined value.
3) I would bet on DFI's notoriously questionable design choices resulting in problems.
Click to expand...

Would this be a problem with ALL DFI boards, including the RS482, or would this apply only to the design of the DFI Ultra-D motherboards?
(thread jack)

Be aware as well that the Enermax Liberty also has a failsafe that automatically shuts down the PSU when the load of any of the rails goes over its maximum. This is directly from the Enermax Liberty manual.
 
Ubermouser said:
Would this be a problem with ALL DFI boards, including the RS482, or would this apply only to the design of the DFI Ultra-D motherboards?
(thread jack)
Click to expand...

Honestly I only know when problems pop up with each individual board...of which I tend to find lots of different "issues" with a lot of different DFI models (ie the boards not likeing certain components yet the components are spec compliant). I will say this though...DFI makes choices that can and often do violate spec compliance which can make them popular among overclockers....for that very same reason however...I NEVER put DFI boards into systems I expect to function with any kind of regularity and never to systems that clients use.
 
Thanks you everyone for your insight into this issue. I was hoping for a consensus, but am nevertheless very grateful for everyone's input.

I've checked the BIOS as requested above and it reports the 12.0V running at 12.05V. There is no reading for current.

I've run Memtest86 as requested above for 24 hours straight and didn't have a single error.

I downloaded 3DMark06 and have ran it several times with no problems. However, when I run World of Warcraft, my machine freezes or the application crashes to desktop after 30 minutes or so (sometimes as much as a couple hours). I need to do more testing with other applications involving video.

If you guys have any recommendations for a good 3D burnin program, please let me know and I will try running it for a long time to see if I have problems.

In the meantime, I'm not completely convinced that it's my PSU that is causing this problem. At least not enough to go out and buy a new one.

One strange behavior that I noticed tho is my machine is quite a bit more stable in WoW when I have the case panel off and a fan blowing inside. When I'm doing this, WoW will usually just crash to desktop instead of locking up the machine all together. However, the temperatures on my CPU and GPU get much hotter when using 3DMark06 and I haven't had a problem yet (with the fan and without.

Again, my sincere thanks for all of your input. I will continue to try and debug this on my end.

Finneal
 
What are the BSOD messages you are getting?

Exactly what games crash? All just WoW?

Can you pop the side off the case and get more air to video card and see if it is maybe an overheating issue with the card? With the PSU?
 
Finneal said:
I've checked the BIOS as requested above and it reports the 12.0V running at 12.05V. There is no reading for current.
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While I am not convinced it is your PSU. To get a true voltage you are going to need to check your voltages with a DMM to know what they are for sure. BIOS and software readings are not reliable. If you don't have a DMM this one http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027898543&postcount=12 is good enough for the task and can be had cheap. Check the voltages following the instructions here: http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=137886
 
I have that same exact card from BFG, and was having the SAME EXACT problems. Only when I was playing WoW, with all of the setting cranked up did I ever experience those problems though. BFG says you need at least 26A on the 12V rails combined. You need to look at the sticker on your PSU to double check your 12V rails are beefy enough. I had a 500W Thermaltake PSU at first, but then I swapped it out for a BFG 600W PSU. Since then I have not had any problems with anything.

From my own personal hell in going through what you are going through, most people told me that it most likely wasn't the PSU, because I had plenty of wattage.....but generally when you have enough wattage, you have plenty of amperage on the 12V rails.

Just a word of advise, if you get a new PSU, and it still does the same thing, RMA your card......I actually damaged my card with not giving it enough power (don't ask how, as I don't know) and once those two things were taken care of, I was set.

Although, as someone mentioned before, if it turns out not to be your PSU, it probably is your RAM.
 
Some more information. I actually pulled my power supply out to look at the label on the side and it's maximum for the 12V rail is 32A, so I don't think this is the issue.

As for heat, I have the side of the case off and a blower pointed inside, so I don't think heat is the issue. 3DMark06 runs the machine a lot hotter than WoW and I haven't had a problem with it yet.

The only application I've experienced this issue with so far is WoW, but I haven't tried many others. The only other game I've tried is Oblivion which seemed to work fine for the hour or so that I played it.

As for the specific BSODs, I actually haven't got many of them. Whenever the system comes back up after a crash, Windows tells me it has recovered from a serious error and when I send a report it pops up a browser giving me some very general information about a driver conflict.

I will keep investigating this on my end. Please let me know if you have any other ideas.

Thanks again,

Finneal
 
Finneal said:
Some more information. I actually pulled my power supply out to look at the label on the side and it's maximum for the 12V rail is 32A, so I don't think this is the issue.
Click to expand...

That sounds familiar ;)
 
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