Power Supply not enough for my system?

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FXingSerious

FXingSerious

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Jan 15, 2016
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Hi there,

I own an EVGA 400W Power Supply for my HTPC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438015

My specs are:

AMD Athlon X4 845
F2A88XN-WIFI Motherboard with Latest Bios
AMD Radeon RX 460
1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM

I used to own an Athlon X2 370K and had a GT 730 paired to it. I never had any problems with games crashing or trouble with dual monitor setups. Lately I decided to upgrade the graphics card. I got an RX 470 at first but both my monitors would turn on and off non stop, one screen then another; to the point were both screens would just stay off while the system is still running. I reinstalled the drivers over and over again using DDU. I also used AMD's newer drivers later on but nothing fixed the problem, so I returned the card thinking it was faulty.

I then decided to buy an RX 460 because of the lower power consumption and use the rest of the credit for an Athlon X4 845. Same problem with the dual monitor setup. Now I am thinking if it's the power supply that's causing me the problem. I have been getting crashes in Star Wars Battlefront, World of Tanks and Fallout 4, with the "driver has stopped" warnings and everything.

My case is cramped with all the cables of this non modular case so I am willing to replace it, but I don't want to buy a power supply if I don't need to. What do you guys think it is?

Thanks

 
Solution
Martell1977


The SeaSonic M12II 520 is a great unit and leaves you with some headroom. The PSU is one part where you should never go cheap on. The cheaper units are cheaper for a reason.
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Martell1977

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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What are your temps? Try HWMonitor to see what your temps are doing.

Also, if you have a local shop or access to a different power supply, you could have yours tested or try swapping in a different one, to test. EVGA sells some of the best PSU's out there, however, there are a few bad models and you bought one of them. With EVGA PSU's you want to avoid the W1, P1 and B1 models.

Here is a reference of PSU's:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html
 
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FXingSerious

FXingSerious

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Jan 15, 2016
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I got the W1 model I think, with 430w. It works fine with the GT730 but not when I tested all the three models of the RX family of cards. The GPU temps on the RX 460 right now are 47C idle and 71C load stress tested with OCCT, in an ambient temp of 30C. But I had the RX 480 and 470 fail on me with ambient temps of 11C so I don't think it has to do with temps.
 
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Martell1977

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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More than likely the PSU. The 730 doesn't draw much power, even under load. While the RX series are pretty good on power usage, it seems that they are exposing the weakness of your PSU. Only way to know for sure is to test with another, go to a shop for testing or replace the PSU. From what you describe, it does sound like a PSU issue though. If you get a 500w PSU from Seasonic or one of EVGA's better models, it would probably fix the issue. You shouldn't buy anything lower than 80+ Bronze certified. The certification isn't a indicator of quality, but gives you an idea of the efficiency.
 
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FXingSerious

FXingSerious

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Jan 15, 2016
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I think I will get another power supply. I am looking at the SeaSonic M12II 520 because I have one myself. The other one is an ENERMAX TRIATHLOR ECO ETL450AWT-M 450 Watts. The latter being cheaper, but will it be enough for my build?
 
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M

MasterMace

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Oct 12, 2010
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I'm not as certain as the other posters here that this is a PSU issue. The EVGA in the OP has 34A on the 12v rail, at JG had tested the W1 unit at full load, which included 29A at his 100% test, and it worked fine, keeping to 2.8% voltage stability in the hot tests. The Rx 470 pulls 160W, and the RX 460 pulls 110w. The unit should be enough to power it.

There are a lot of people who are having AMD driver issues with version 16.8.# in particular.

Which operating system do you have, Windows? 7 / 10? 32 / 64 bit?
Are you playing at DX11 or DX12 when having these issues?

From a post in august
 
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Martell1977

Martell1977

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Oct 26, 2010
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The SeaSonic M12II 520 is a great unit and leaves you with some headroom. The PSU is one part where you should never go cheap on. The cheaper units are cheaper for a reason.
 
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Solution
FXingSerious

FXingSerious

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Jan 15, 2016
132
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I also thought it was a driver issue but... same problem on three different cards? Why is it that I don't see people complaining about it. I also had this problem since I got my hands on the RX 480. The only time I have seen drivers suddenly stop working and give me weird artifacts is when it's related to the PSU.

I am on Windows 10 64bit
 
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