Strange symptoms -- Too little PSU?

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tgeo888

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I recently bought a 560 ti and after making this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/338436-33-bought-expecting-much also upgraded to a q6600 CPU (which, when I am actually in windows and playing works brilliantly).

So that makes my current specs (to see my power needs):

q6600 @ 2.8ghz (from 2.4)
560 ti @ 860mhz (from 822)
2x7200 hdd (1 sata, 1 ide)
6gb DDR2 RAM (2x2gb, 2x1gb)
PCI soundcard
a few system fans

and all that is powered by my 550W mushkin PSU (~2 yrs old).

My symptoms are:

1) When the computer goes to sleep and I resume it, (whether by usb or by power button) everything seems to resume fine except for the video card. All the fans spin up (including ones on the video card) and it gives me a little status is good beep but I get no video. Only way to get video is to hit the restart button and hope I get back into windows... see symptom # 2.

2) About 3/4 of the time when I power up the machine I get 1 long beep followed by 2 short beeps and I get no video again. Looking at: http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm I see under the AWARD Bios (I have these -- Abit ip35-e) my beep code seems to mean: "Indicates a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information".

3) My overclocks seem pretty weak to me and they will seem stable but then fail when playing bf3. Example: I started my q6600 (g0 stepping) adventure straight off the bat at 3.0ghz because I have an aftermarket cooler and sure enough with the right voltage it booted into windows and I was able to run prime95 for a solid hour at ~55C before I declared it stable. Now at 3.0ghz, when I load bf3 I will get to the end of the "loading" screen, right before you join the game... and the OS will crash (no BSOD, just blank, black screen).

EDIT: Also maybe I should mention that speedfan reads my +12V as 6.76V (I've heard software can be unreliable, and besides... would windows even boot that low?) but in the actual BIOS it reads like 11.79V.

TLDR: Basically, is my PSU underpowered? Could it be the reason for these problems?
 
Solution
For a system using a single GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card NVIDIA specifies a minimum of a 500 Watt or greater power supply that has a combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 30 Amps or greater and that has at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors.

Your Mushkin Enhanced 550 Watt (550200), with its combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 28 Amps, doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

The excessive ripple on the +12V rail is destroying the capacitors on your motherboard and graphics card.

JonnyGURU.com only gave the Mushkin Enhanced 550 Watt power supply a 6.5 rating.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=20
Is your PSU underpowered? I think so. 12 volt rating is 28 amps max. That is pretty good - for a 400 watt power supply. A good 550 should be able to produce around 40 amps.

A GTX560 Ti under load will pull around 15 amps max. A Q6600 will pull 8 - 10 amps depending on the overclock. Those alone put you very close to the 28 amp limit.

Speedfan 12 volt reading is erroneous. Your system would not be able to turn on, let alone boot at that level.

The Q6600 overclock is weak. With stock cooling, you should be able to run at 3.0 GHz. You should be able to run at 3.3 GHz with any kind of decent after market cooling.

I do not like overclocking GPU's. I figure they run hot enough already.

I do not regard running Prime95 for one hour to be an adequate check of stability. I run 24 hours which most people think is overdoing it.

The first thing I would do is set the complete system to stock frequencies, then see what happens.
 

tgeo888

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Well when this first started happening the first thing I did was reset the CMOS (so back to stock) and it kept happening for about 4-5 restarts... I thought the video card had died and was ready to RMA until I put an old GPU back in and it worked fine. Then when I put the 560 ti in it randomly decided to boot up.

I know this sounds like a simple case of logic that if the old card works and the new one doesn't its the card using too much power, but I've run bf3 with this new card at these current overclock levels before and it ran perfectly... even GPU benchmarks like furmark. I can't imagine how it could pull more power by simply starting the system than by gaming or running a benchmark specifically meant to get the GPU as hot as possible.

Just to be complete, I checked my PSU and its 28A like you said.
 
For a system using a single GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card NVIDIA specifies a minimum of a 500 Watt or greater power supply that has a combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 30 Amps or greater and that has at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors.

Your Mushkin Enhanced 550 Watt (550200), with its combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 28 Amps, doesn't meet the minimum requirements.

The excessive ripple on the +12V rail is destroying the capacitors on your motherboard and graphics card.

JonnyGURU.com only gave the Mushkin Enhanced 550 Watt power supply a 6.5 rating.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=20
 
Solution

All of the following are semi-modular:

PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III PPCMK3S500 for $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703035

Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power for $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX550M for $89.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139032

Antec TruePower New TP-550 for $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371020

PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III PPCMK3S600 600W for $89.99 ($69.99 after mail-in rebate card)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703036
 
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