Hi,
I've just upgraded my graphics card from an X850 XT PE to a 9800 GX2 as a final (and pretty much only) upgrade before I retire this machine. Since I can't afford to build a machine from scratch at the moment, or at least not my ideal one, I was hoping to keep this one ticking over for a while longer.
I'll list everything since power consumption is going to be important here:
AMD X2 4200
Nvidia 9800 GX2
2GB Corsair XMS TwinX PC3200
EQS A72K9-CF motherboard (never did use Crossfire
)
4xSeagate Barracudas
4xcase fans
Soundblaster Live 1024 (it's lasted well)
Card driver version: 180.48
The OS is Windows XP. I have my regular install, and a clean install for testing purposes.
Just to make it clear, I wasn't expecting amazing framerates with that hardware given how old it is now, but I was expecting far better than what I'm actually getting.
I've had problems with the card from the word go. The card didn't work at all until I set told the BIOS to initialise PCI-E before PCI, and doing so has caused 64MB RAM to be shared with what seems to be onboard graphics, and this motherboard doesn't officially have any. I guess they just didn't include an output on this model.
I eventually got a picture out bottom output on the card. I'd have presumed that the manual would be right in saying that the top output is the bootable one, but I guess not.
After messing around with the drivers to get them to work with XP, it was time to test. I noticed the game performance didn't seem to very good. Infact, it was only a tiny step up from the X850 XT PE.
I presumed that perhaps the SLI wasn't working, but Rivatuner confirms that it is, although there's no multi GPU option in the Nvidia control panel as there should be (apparently). I did try to disable SLI to check for a difference in performance, but that just locks the drivers up and causes the machine to bluescreen whenever it's booted, under both Windows installations.
The only thing I can think of is that the card is underpowered, and it probably is, but I'm not sure how badly.
After checking real world consumption and seeing that the 580w recommendation was overkill, I decided to try it out on a 500w first (http://www.antec.com/usa/productDetails.php?lan=us&id=26500 http://www.antec.com/specs/SP500_spe.html) and go from there. I've become a bit confused about whether or not it's getting enough power.
The PSU has four modular outputs and two 12v rails (17A and 19A). I've connected two PCI-E connectors to the 8 pin input cable with one connector in each modular slot (second and third slot). Since the 6 pin connector needs two molex inputs, I've connected that cable to the fourth modular slot on the PSU. The first is being used to power all the drives and fans, since I wasn't strong enough to pull this one out the PSU to rearrange it.
Benchmarks against a similar PC:
http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=7624655&compareResultType=14
X850 XT PE: http://service.futuremark.com/resultAnalyzer.action?resultId=9409404&resultType=14
If anybody has any ideas or suggestions on what could be causing the problem, they'd be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to replace the PSU unless it's 100% sure it's causing the problem since they're not cheap over here (compared to the U.S.).
Thanks for your time. =)
I've just upgraded my graphics card from an X850 XT PE to a 9800 GX2 as a final (and pretty much only) upgrade before I retire this machine. Since I can't afford to build a machine from scratch at the moment, or at least not my ideal one, I was hoping to keep this one ticking over for a while longer.
I'll list everything since power consumption is going to be important here:
AMD X2 4200
Nvidia 9800 GX2
2GB Corsair XMS TwinX PC3200
EQS A72K9-CF motherboard (never did use Crossfire
)4xSeagate Barracudas
4xcase fans
Soundblaster Live 1024 (it's lasted well)
Card driver version: 180.48
The OS is Windows XP. I have my regular install, and a clean install for testing purposes.
Just to make it clear, I wasn't expecting amazing framerates with that hardware given how old it is now, but I was expecting far better than what I'm actually getting.
I've had problems with the card from the word go. The card didn't work at all until I set told the BIOS to initialise PCI-E before PCI, and doing so has caused 64MB RAM to be shared with what seems to be onboard graphics, and this motherboard doesn't officially have any. I guess they just didn't include an output on this model.
I eventually got a picture out bottom output on the card. I'd have presumed that the manual would be right in saying that the top output is the bootable one, but I guess not.
After messing around with the drivers to get them to work with XP, it was time to test. I noticed the game performance didn't seem to very good. Infact, it was only a tiny step up from the X850 XT PE.
I presumed that perhaps the SLI wasn't working, but Rivatuner confirms that it is, although there's no multi GPU option in the Nvidia control panel as there should be (apparently). I did try to disable SLI to check for a difference in performance, but that just locks the drivers up and causes the machine to bluescreen whenever it's booted, under both Windows installations.
The only thing I can think of is that the card is underpowered, and it probably is, but I'm not sure how badly.
After checking real world consumption and seeing that the 580w recommendation was overkill, I decided to try it out on a 500w first (http://www.antec.com/usa/productDetails.php?lan=us&id=26500 http://www.antec.com/specs/SP500_spe.html) and go from there. I've become a bit confused about whether or not it's getting enough power.
The PSU has four modular outputs and two 12v rails (17A and 19A). I've connected two PCI-E connectors to the 8 pin input cable with one connector in each modular slot (second and third slot). Since the 6 pin connector needs two molex inputs, I've connected that cable to the fourth modular slot on the PSU. The first is being used to power all the drives and fans, since I wasn't strong enough to pull this one out the PSU to rearrange it.
Benchmarks against a similar PC:
http://service.futuremark.com/resultComparison.action?compareResultId=7624655&compareResultType=14
X850 XT PE: http://service.futuremark.com/resultAnalyzer.action?resultId=9409404&resultType=14
If anybody has any ideas or suggestions on what could be causing the problem, they'd be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to replace the PSU unless it's 100% sure it's causing the problem since they're not cheap over here (compared to the U.S.).
Thanks for your time. =)
. Also use Google to see if anyone else is having trouble with your particular board model and newer video cards.
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