Use video card with comupter ... "that doesn't work!"

[Chicky]

Heh, another computer woe to mindboggle the ags hardware leets.

My computer is one of those horrible hp pre-builds (thumbs up for pc world cridit scams) but its not half bad had a 2.4 quad core, 3 gigs of ram and did have a basic 300watt psu.

Now i bought an 8800 gtx for it as the video card before was bottlenecking and also a new psu as my new card needs two pci-e power connectors.

So i got an EZ Cool 600W SLI Ready PSU - 12cm Fan, 2x PCI-E, 20+4pin, 1x SATA and now all i get is the system rebooting whenever the pci-e bus or gpu is stressed.

ideas?

[Haddas]

I think you need more power. It sounds like it. Not sure though, but it sounds like a problem i used to have.

Bought new gfx card. Computer starts shutting down. By Buy bigger PSU. problem solved

[BOYD1981]

this is a very handy site for working out just how much power your pc needs http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
you just feed it your pc specs and hit calculate.
for your kinda setup it recommends 513w, so 600 should be enough. although i didn't include any fans in the equasion.

[Moresco]

Are any components overheating?  Sounds like you've got enough power, but if the problem is related to your graphics card, either the card could be damaged/faulty, or the mobo itself could be damaged.

If it's just overheating, maybe there's not enough space and you need to create some airflow by tying back some cables or something or getting another fan?  Fire some compressed air in there and clean out the dust bunnies?  I had a similar problem to this, bought a case with more space and it came with two large fans in the front and back which fixed the overheating problem, but alas I lost a graphics card from the many failures. 

Short of these obvious fixes, you might just take it and have it hooked up to a tester at the local computer repair site - or start swapping out components. When my last gfx card died, I took it in and they let me swap in one of their older test cards for free which revealed the card as the problem...not everyone will be that generous though.

[Mantra of Doom]

It sounds like overheating... which can happen if the computer case was made for just a baseline computer with no power. Those heavy video cards need either extra space or a fan under them. I highly recommend one of these:



It installs in the slot under the video card and sucks the hot air out of the case. They are cheap and you can even buy them at Best Buy... but on the Internet you can get them for about $2.

[Chicky]

Hey hey,

I figured it was the psu as i dont have any temp problems on my cpu or card (all my cables are tucked away nicely) so a new psu should be here soon.

My current one is 600w which should be fine but it doesn't have the 12v rails my card requires. At least that's what i figured, we shall see!


*edit*

New psu arrived today and everything is running sweet. Crysis is a nice looking game!