I bought a radeon 3850 512 from newegg.. for some reason half of these don't come with pci-e 6 pin adapters.. so i had to buy one from my local pc shop. Well i got it home, and had a hell of a time trying to plug it in. Its the right adapter as I have used them before on the same type card, but this brand seems to be aggrivating about wanting to allow the plug to go in. After pretty much forcing it, i finally got it to where i think its making a connection with the pins at least..

the pc boots up, the fans spin, and windows loads, and it sees the card. How can I tell if the power from the 6 pin is actually working?

if there is no power then u will get warning at boot.

on the video card?

someone else was telling me that the card will allow windows to boot and the fan will spin even if the 6 pin pci-e connector is connecting, so your saying this is not true then.

You will know for sure if you have problems gaming. If the card does not get enough juice it will likely crash when playing any semi demanding games. If you can play with no problems, then you are likely giving it what it needs. Another thing to watch would be the core temp on the GPU. Another side effect of under powered cards can be overheating, though most of the time you just get crashes or can't even boot.

What kind of PSU do you have? Check the label on the side of it and let us know the power outputs, namely the wattage and how many amps on the 12 v rail/s.

I'm not really trying to see if its getting "enough" power.. I am just trying to see if the 6 pin is actually making contact to give it power.

I ran an 256mb 3850 just fine with this PSU, its 680 watts. I just had a hard time trying to get the connector to go into its spot, so not sure if the 6 pin connector is making contact.

it boots up, and I ran a video stability test.. and it was fine through that..

if it wasn't getting power, your computer would not post when you hit the power button. You would just hear one long continous beep.

you are talking about the graphics card right? and not the pc itself?

I installed a 7800 GT and forgot to plug in the 6 pin (doh).

I got a message saying the card was being powered down.

I know, that was what I was saying. You will know if it doesn't have a good connection when it doesn't work right. If everything is working right, no crashes, you can assume that you have ample power (and connection).