Is my psu dying, or something else?

[konet]

I upgraded a bunch of components to my homebuilt system in February, but since then I have not been able to use my new gpu (gtx 580). first I bought a hd 6970, but whenever I tried to play a game, the screen would crash to black, and I would have to restart my computer. I thought it was a faulty card so I got a refund and purchased the gtx 580. Same problem, but now sometimes I get a bsod code on reboot saying nvlddmkm.sys has failed. since this made my computer basically unusable, I put my old card (a 9800gx2) back in and things have worked alright since then. Speaking to a friend, he suggested that my power supply may be failing (its about 3-3.5 years old, 1000w, and it feels very hot to the touch inside the case). It was hooked up when my old mobo died (the reason for the upgrade), and I don't know how to test whether or not it is failing. Also, today, I downloaded a new game (the witcher 2), and when I started playing it my surge protector/battery backup started beeping. according to the user manual for the surge protector, this means the "UPS is overloaded". I didn't want to purchase any more hardware without being sure, what do you guys think?

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

have you properly uninstall all previous gpu drivers?

 

[konet]

yea, I tried tons of different drivers, uninstalling in safe mode, drivercleaner, all that stuff.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

then the psu should be the culprit.What is the brand of the psu?

To me it should be the main culprit.

 

[kd0frg]

Run furmark with the gtx 580 and see if after a period of 30 mins or so your computer BSOD's or shuts off/reboots .. if so.. prob the psu saying its goodbyes in a gentle fashion.

 

[westom]

I didn't want to purchase any more hardware without being sure, what do you guys think?

Smarter is to identify a failure before fixing anything. Anybody can recommend any item in your computer as the culprit. Due to no hard facts; only subjective observation. Those who better know this stuff can say nothing until numbers arrive. All your questions - everything you have listed as a suspect - can be exonerated or accused by simply taking a few simple numbers with a multimeter. Buy or borrow this inexpensive and ubiquitous tool. Set it to 20 VDC. Touch its red probe to each requested colored wire as the system operates. Especially when operation erratic. Those four important wires are any one purple, red, orange, and yellow where those wires attach the PSU to motherboard.

The purple wire should measure about 5 volts. But a three digit number for each wire is required. Only then can anyone make a list of what are suspect and a majority of items that are exonerated. Without those numbers, everything can be blamed for your problem.

 

[jsc]

You also need to monitor the gray wire.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot. If this signal switches to around 0 volts (Logic LOW), it sends a hardware reset to the CPU.