How to troubleshoot PSU?

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

Hey all, I have come to believe that my PSU might be faulty. Recently, high intensity games have been shutting down after a few minutes into them, unless I underclock my GPU to 50%. It seems that the cause might be that the PSU isn't drawing enough power to the system.

While I have contacted Antec themselves and my reseller, who both believe that the PSU is most likely the cause, I was wondering, is there an accurate way of determining if low amperage is the actual cause?
I don't want to pay shipping, and have them only return the same PSU back because the PSU was actually not faulty.

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

track the 12V power whilst at 50% underclock, and then track it at 40% and so on. It won't be a low current scenario, it'll be a low voltage whilst it tries to provide the current, so you are looking for a voltage dip, that dip will then prevent the card from working properly.

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

Thanks for the reply, how would I go about tracking the Voltage?

beegmouse · Nov 19, 2015

Your symptoms match an under rated or faulty PSU.

There is no bulletproof diagnosis unless you have an oscilloscope and a lot of time.

The only other fault I can think of it could be is a burnt CPU or GPU. If you have never overclocked that is very unlikely.

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

speedfan, some versions of GPU monitoring software allow it.

beegmouse · Nov 19, 2015

Can you borrow a PSU from somone to see if it fixes it?

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

@13thmonkey
I'll test it out and see how it goes then.

@beegmouse
Sadly, I don't know anyone who has a PSU sufficient enough to power my system.

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

BTW what is your system

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

i5 4460
H97
8GB 1600mhz RAM
Sapphire r9 280x OC (Pre-overclocked by manufacturer, and not by me)

Antec HCG-620M (620W, 48A on the 12V rail)

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

try swapping modular cables, or swapping the ports that they plug into.

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

13thmonkey :

Sadly, I don't have any spare modular cables, but later, I'll probably try swapping the ports that they plug into and see if that helps.

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

Nyminix :

Does that not come with 2 sets of PCI-E cables, i.e. 4x8 or 4x 6+2 or 2x6 + 2x8?

Nyminix · Nov 19, 2015

13thmonkey :

Doesn't seem so. I do have these: 2 molex to 8 pin (x2) but that's it.

Also, I did some really quick testing (don't have much time left), and the 12V according to Speed fan reaches 11.50~11.88 under load and 12.09 idle.

13thmonkey · Nov 19, 2015

that's ok, there is some error in speedfan, but that kind of dip is normal, now ramp up the load and see if it is stable. Check the 5V too.

Nyminix · Nov 23, 2015

13thmonkey :

Apologies for the late reply, been busy.

Okay, I let the GFX Card run at max power, and just let it run until the computer shut down. I stayed still in the game, and the graphics card ramped up in temperature, up to 90 Celsius before shutting down. Fan speeds reached about 80% and the load was at a constant 68%.
The 12V from speedfan stayed about at 11.88V, but dipped to 11.73 once, other than that, it remained stable.

I also decided to see what my computer did once it "shutdown". Turns out, it doesn't really shutdown as I first thought. The computer seems to still be on (previously, I thought the computer shutdown, but the GFX Card light stayed on), as the fans are still spinning.
So could the GFX Card actually be to blame?

13thmonkey · Nov 23, 2015

what card? thats hot for amd, warm for nvidia.

Nyminix · Nov 23, 2015

It's an AMD r9 280x

EDIT: I should add, it's summer here and my room gets hot at 30+ degrees C almost all the time.

13thmonkey · Nov 25, 2015

as a test, ramp the fan profile to 100%, blow other fans at it, do anything you can to keep the temp down, does this improve the experience? If it does then your cooling in insufficient, I would have thought that it would throttle rather than just stop 'working' though.

Nyminix · Nov 25, 2015

Yeah tomorrow (where I live), I'll probably ramp the AC down to like <20 C and open up front panel of my case and do that and see how it goes.
Yeh it's weird, every place seems to say that 95 C, it'll just throttle down due to the heat.

Thanks for the help though

Nyminix · Nov 26, 2015

13thmonkey :

Interestingly, just did a test at 68% workload with around 70% fan speeds. It maintained an 80-82 degrees, still crashed. (in 7 minutes)

Did another one at 89% load, with about 70% fan speeds, crashed soon as it reached 82 degrees - within 2 minutes.

13thmonkey · Nov 26, 2015

faulty card is my best bet. can you make it run at 80c for a long time?

Nyminix · Nov 26, 2015

Yes I can. I did a test at 20-30% load and it maintained 80-87 degrees without crashing at all. Still disturbing that at those loads, the GFX Card reaches those temps. (Once it hit the 87 degrees mark, I would blast the fans up to cool it down back to low 80s)

13thmonkey · Nov 26, 2015

it'd be nice to put another similarly powerful card in it's place and test it. it'd prove that everything worked. or put your card in another machine and test it. I'm betting on a bad card.

Nyminix · Nov 26, 2015

Yeah, I might just bear the multi hour travel to the computer store and have them test the graphics card there, and see how it goes.
Thanks for all the help though! Very helpful stuff

How to troubleshoot PSU?

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