Power supply [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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Tallithia

12-27-2011, 06:18 PM

Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??

Peogia

12-28-2011, 06:10 AM

Yado

12-28-2011, 06:31 AM

Wow 220w is a really bad PS, but I doubt its causing your game to run slow. You didn’t say how much RAM you have but it’s been my experience that you need at least 2GB and a standalone video card ( aka not built into the MB cause that will share your RAM ) just to play on the low end of graphic’s settings. Quad core while nice won’t help at all with this game because it’s not compiled to use more than one core, same thing go's for graphic cards but it does help if you have an expansion type video card. So I would shoot for 4GB or more RAM and a video card., but with that being said your silly 220w PS wont power that so you’re going to need a bigger one I would say no less than a 850w.

Tyrsei

12-31-2011, 05:47 PM

A 220w ps is very low,it's a wonder that you're not getting computer restart's and such.With your setup and a single video card 500w is more than enough,most video cards peak out at less than 150w-200w under stress and 200w should be plenty to run the rest of the system.Now if you were running a dual video card setup I'd say go with a 700w or better.I'm running a single ATI card,8gig ram and an Intel i5 2500k and it runs great with a 500w $70 power supply from Newegg.You can get a good quality 500w for less than $100 that will last 5+ yrs.

deadcrickets2

01-01-2012, 01:39 PM

I would look on Anandtech and HardOCP as they both review power supplies occassionally. In fact, HardOCP just did a review a few days ago. Most likely with that 220 the video card is being shorted so it's essentially running in 2D mode. Worse, it's doing damage to it which is why most drivers, such as NVIDIA, will warn you about it. Secondly, it's most likely a very, very cheap PSU that will go poof within six months taking your board and more with it. I would replace it as quickly as possibly and be careful to read the reviews on Newegg to ensure it's a good PSU. I did see a fairly good 650 on there for about $50USD last night that I, myself, plan to get.

MMORefugee

01-01-2012, 06:42 PM

Yeah, get a name brand 600w+.I like Silverstone, modulars are handy as well but not necessary.

Peogia

01-01-2012, 11:53 PM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>. I did see a fairly good 650 on there for about $50USD last night that I, myself, plan to get.</blockquote>What one? link

Wingrider01

01-02-2012, 09:52 AM

<cite>Tallithia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??</blockquote>A power supply will not cause the game to run slow, it will cause reboots and crashes, if that is not occurring then it is not the issue. Some more detailed specifications on cpu model / speed, vcard, etc would be more helpful.The game has limited multi-core support and the number of cores make very little impact on performance, for all the enhancements that have been made, the game is still heavily cpu core clock dependant. A signle core 3.30 Mhz will far out perform a quad core 2.0 Mhz processor. Have two machine that are very exact in builds, same memory, same video card, etc, except for the processor one has a Intel I7 870 @ 2.93 mhz and the other has a Intel I7 2600 # 3.3 mhz, the 2600 outperforms the 870 by about 10 percent with the exact same settings for the game client.

deadcrickets2

01-02-2012, 12:30 PM

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tallithia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??</blockquote>A power supply will not cause the game to run slow, it will cause reboots and crashes, i</blockquote>Incorrect. If the power supply is either too low a wattage or is not providing the correct voltage on the 12v line the video card will not only be unstable but it will run at 2D speeds. There is a reason that drivers such as NVIDIA's will warn you that the card is in 2D mode and that it may suffer damage when you don't hook up the power cable to the back of some cards.

Wingrider01

01-02-2012, 04:47 PM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tallithia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??</blockquote>A power supply will not cause the game to run slow, it will cause reboots and crashes, i</blockquote>Incorrect. If the power supply is either too low a wattage or is not providing the correct voltage on the 12v line the video card will not only be unstable but it will run at 2D speeds. There is a reason that drivers such as NVIDIA's will warn you that the card is in 2D mode and that it may suffer damage when you don't hook up the power cable to the back of some cards.</blockquote>Right, care to back this up with documentation from the manufacturer of what you claim?The primary reslts of a insufficeint psu will be blue screens, crashes amd other interesting thing but in have never seen it reported nor documented that a PSU that is sized to small will cause it to run slow. Would be very interested in seeing the validated documentation.

deadcrickets2

01-02-2012, 06:48 PM

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tallithia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??</blockquote>A power supply will not cause the game to run slow, it will cause reboots and crashes, i</blockquote>Incorrect. If the power supply is either too low a wattage or is not providing the correct voltage on the 12v line the video card will not only be unstable but it will run at 2D speeds. There is a reason that drivers such as NVIDIA's will warn you that the card is in 2D mode and that it may suffer damage when you don't hook up the power cable to the back of some cards.</blockquote>Right, care to back this up with documentation from the manufacturer of what you claim?The primary reslts of a insufficeint psu will be blue screens, crashes amd other interesting thing but in have never seen it reported nor documented that a PSU that is sized to small will cause it to run slow. Would be very interested in seeing the validated documentation.</blockquote>Try this:Unplug the molex connector on your video card and boot up Windows. See that little error message from NVIDIA? Notice that it states, quite clearly, that you risk damaging your card? <img src="http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6783/nvidiapower.jpg" />Here's the exact message:"The NVIDIA System Sentinal is reporting that the NVIDIA-powered graphics card is not receiving sufficient power. To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations."

Wingrider01

01-02-2012, 08:08 PM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tallithia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Apparently software doesn't mean much if the power supply isn't 350 and higher. Unfortunately in my purchase I neglected to ask the question 'what size is the power supply'.Got a comp at a good price with all the bells a wistles, quad core, graphics cpu etc. However the power supply is 220w Game looks great and runs smooth, however slowly (not lag, just slow). grrrrr So shopping around and it seems that alot of computers power supplys are on the low end. So frusterating that they offer good software/hardware packages (finally) but then skimp on the power. What's up with that??</blockquote>A power supply will not cause the game to run slow, it will cause reboots and crashes, i</blockquote>Incorrect. If the power supply is either too low a wattage or is not providing the correct voltage on the 12v line the video card will not only be unstable but it will run at 2D speeds. There is a reason that drivers such as NVIDIA's will warn you that the card is in 2D mode and that it may suffer damage when you don't hook up the power cable to the back of some cards.</blockquote>Right, care to back this up with documentation from the manufacturer of what you claim?The primary reslts of a insufficeint psu will be blue screens, crashes amd other interesting thing but in have never seen it reported nor documented that a PSU that is sized to small will cause it to run slow. Would be very interested in seeing the validated documentation.</blockquote>Try this:Unplug the molex connector on your video card and boot up Windows. See that little error message from NVIDIA? Notice that it states, quite clearly, that you risk damaging your card? <img src="http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6783/nvidiapower.jpg" />Here's the exact message:"The NVIDIA System Sentinal is reporting that the NVIDIA-powered graphics card is not receiving sufficient power. To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations."</blockquote>you are discussing something totaly different, you are proving the removing a required connection to the video card is causing that message to be displayed, it has absolutely no relationship to the question of a lower wattage PSU causing the game to run slow, since the end user is has not indicated they recieveing that particular message then it is a moot point, their complaint that the "power supply" is to weak and casuing the game to run slow. Other then removing a required connection from the video board a psu cannot cause a game to run slow, you do not even know if the card they are running even has that connection since o vidoe card was indicated.No thanks as far as pulling any connectors from my any of my three GTX 580's, absolutely refuse to do anything that could possible cause harm to them, especially since the power connections are required for the proper functionality of the cardsSorry a 220 watt PSU can pull enough power on the 12 volt rail to run a lower end video card, the op makes absolutely no indication what exact video card or processor is being run, the PSU may be sized right for the machine configuration if the video card is one of the lower end nvidia or ati card. Suspect tht the main cause is a lower clocked cpu

deadcrickets2

01-02-2012, 08:36 PM

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote></blockquote>Right, care to back this up with documentation from the manufacturer of what you claim?The primary reslts of a insufficeint psu will be blue screens, crashes amd other interesting thing but in have never seen it reported nor documented that a PSU that is sized to small will cause it to run slow. Would be very interested in seeing the validated documentation.</blockquote>Try this:Unplug the molex connector on your video card and boot up Windows. See that little error message from NVIDIA? Notice that it states, quite clearly, that you risk damaging your card? <img src="http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6783/nvidiapower.jpg" />Here's the exact message:"The NVIDIA System Sentinal is reporting that the NVIDIA-powered graphics card is not receiving sufficient power. To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its performance to a level that allows continued safe operations."</blockquote>you are discussing something totaly different, you are proving the removing a required connection to the video card is causing that message to be displayed, it has absolutely no relationship to the question of a lower wattage PSU causing the game to run slow, since the end user is has not indicated they recieveing that particular message then it is a moot point, their complaint that the "power supply" is to weak and casuing the game to run slow. Other then removing a required connection from the video board a psu cannot cause a game to run slow, you do not even know if the card they are running even has that connection since o vidoe card was indicated.No thanks as far as pulling any connectors from my any of my three GTX 580's, absolutely refuse to do anything that could possible cause harm to them, especially since the power connections are required for the proper functionality of the cardsSorry a 220 watt PSU can pull enough power on the 12 volt rail to run a lower end video card, the op makes absolutely no indication what exact video card or processor is being run, the PSU may be sized right for the machine configuration if the video card is one of the lower end nvidia or ati card. Suspect tht the main cause is a lower clocked cpu</blockquote>First thing first:If they are using a Radeon card they won't receive the message even though the effect is the same.Secondly, it states extremely clear that the speed of the video card has been reduced to safe speed. Safe speed for NVIDIA cards is the 2D speed. What is the 2D speed? Depends on the card. Some of the Radeons drop to roughly 200Mhz. Thirdly, even if a molex is connected if the PSU is not powerful enough it can cause damage to the card due to undervolting. Ever have electronics destroyed due to a brown out? I have. Fourth, even if a brown out doesn't kill the card the PSU going pop, pop, smoke, burn on you surely will take out the video card, motherboard, and possibly the hard drives. Any person who has been around computers a very long time knows what I'm talking about. Whenever you take a PSU to the max there is a chance it will happen. For further proof you can look at some of the PSU reviews on sites like HardOCP where it has happened. Fifthly, even if a PSU claims to provide enough amperage on the 12v that doesn't mean it does. Read some of the reviews on reputable sites like HardOCP.And finally, if you STILL don't believe me you may contact NVIDIA directly to ask their opinion on it.

deadcrickets2

01-02-2012, 08:46 PM

To give you an idea of what one video card can pull let's focus on an older one, the 8600 GTS. Now remember that every video card pulls a different amount. The 8400 GS will pull a LOT less than the GTX 580 would.An 8600GTS requires 22A of +12V current. +12V * 22A = 264W. 264W. 264W is more than 220. That means that the power is not be adequately shared between the video card, the mother board, the hard drive (s) and anything else hooked up. And remember some of the CPUs like the Regor core by AMD use 95W alone.

Wingrider01

01-03-2012, 01:52 PM

thanks, everything you point out will cause a system to unstable and crash, possibly damaging the hardware.The op has not been back, there has been no other posts on specifications, all in all the information is insufficient to make any determnation at all. Without any specifications on th video card, cpu mhz, memory, etc the psu is pure speculation, they did not even post the manufacturer of the machine, HP, Acer, Dell to name a few all ship machines with the newer low end nvidia cards and put a 220 to 250 watt psu in them.

Tyrsei

01-03-2012, 04:57 PM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>To give you an idea of what one video card can pull let's focus on an older one, the 8600 GTS. Now remember that every video card pulls a different amount. The 8400 GS will pull a LOT less than the GTX 580 would.An 8600GTS requires 22A of +12V current. +12V * 22A = 264W. 264W. 264W is more than 220. That means that the power is not be adequately shared between the video card, the mother board, the hard drive (s) and anything else hooked up. And remember some of the CPUs like the Regor core by AMD use 95W alone.</blockquote>The power consumption on the XFX 8600 GTS is 151w idle and 198w under load,that 264w is way high,even many recent cards are less than 250w load.Just sayin.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/8600_gts/9.html" target="_blank">http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/H...8600_gts/9.html</a>some newer cards.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/11/09/nvidia-geforce-gtx-580-review/8" target="_blank">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gr...tx-580-review/8</a>The ATI cards seem to always require less power,usually.

deadcrickets2

01-03-2012, 05:59 PM

<cite>Tyrsei wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>To give you an idea of what one video card can pull let's focus on an older one, the 8600 GTS. Now remember that every video card pulls a different amount. The 8400 GS will pull a LOT less than the GTX 580 would.An 8600GTS requires 22A of +12V current. +12V * 22A = 264W. 264W. 264W is more than 220. That means that the power is not be adequately shared between the video card, the mother board, the hard drive (s) and anything else hooked up. And remember some of the CPUs like the Regor core by AMD use 95W alone.</blockquote>The power consumption on the XFX 8600 GTS is 151w idle and 198w under load,that 264w is way high,even many recent cards are less than 250w load.Just sayin.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/8600_gts/9.html" target="_blank">http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/H...8600_gts/9.html</a>some newer cards.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/11/09/nvidia-geforce-gtx-580-review/8" target="_blank">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gr...tx-580-review/8</a>The ATI cards seem to always require less power,usually.</blockquote>Usually but not always on the Radeons. And keep in mind that on the same chipset you can have variations due to things such as fan size and/or if it even has a fan. The point being in the end that regardless the video card will be exceeding the recommended power output of the power supply. There is a reason why both AMD and NVIDIA both tell you to get a certain wattage and NVIDIA goes further by giving driver warnings and in some cases, like on the newest cards, refusing to boot.

deadcrickets2

01-03-2012, 06:02 PM

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote>thanks, everything you point out will cause a system to unstable and crash, possibly damaging the hardware.The op has not been back, there has been no other posts on specifications, all in all the information is insufficient to make any determnation at all. Without any specifications on th video card, cpu mhz, memory, etc the psu is pure speculation, they did not even post the manufacturer of the machine, HP, Acer, Dell to name a few all ship machines with the newer low end nvidia cards and put a 220 to 250 watt psu in them.</blockquote>On the ultra low end systems they put a 220 to 250 in them, correct. Reason being is they are using an integrated video which uses about 13w. Even adding in a Radeon 6450 will take it to 31w usage for the video alone. I would recommend people keep the total power usage in mind when building or buying a system and upgrading. There are sites online that can calculate things for a PSU as well.Regardless of the video card I would be very hesitant to risk the money I spent on a system if the PSU is cheap. The build quality alone would be putting my investment at risk.

Wingrider01

01-04-2012, 01:02 PM

<cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote>thanks, everything you point out will cause a system to unstable and crash, possibly damaging the hardware.The op has not been back, there has been no other posts on specifications, all in all the information is insufficient to make any determnation at all. Without any specifications on th video card, cpu mhz, memory, etc the psu is pure speculation, they did not even post the manufacturer of the machine, HP, Acer, Dell to name a few all ship machines with the newer low end nvidia cards and put a 220 to 250 watt psu in them.</blockquote>On the ultra low end systems they put a 220 to 250 in them, correct. Reason being is they are using an integrated video which uses about 13w. Even adding in a Radeon 6450 will take it to 31w usage for the video alone. I would recommend people keep the total power usage in mind when building or buying a system and upgrading. There are sites online that can calculate things for a PSU as well.Regardless of the video card I would be very hesitant to risk the money I spent on a system if the PSU is cheap. The build quality alone would be putting my investment at risk.</blockquote>Some of these "low end systems" as you put it are being sold as gaming systems and they do not have integrated cards installed, they have a addon Nvidia or ATI card.As far as low end PSU's I have built my boxes since the first 8086 system was available in a Altair kit from a box store called Heathkit. In my current run boxes I use one brand PSU and on size PSU - PCpower and Cooling's TurboCool 1200. I wrote a excel spreadsheet years ago to calculate the sizing of both total wattage and what is needed for each of the rails, prefer being able to verify the formulas used rather then taking the word of a online site.

deadcrickets2

01-04-2012, 02:32 PM

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deadcrickets2 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote>thanks, everything you point out will cause a system to unstable and crash, possibly damaging the hardware.The op has not been back, there has been no other posts on specifications, all in all the information is insufficient to make any determnation at all. Without any specifications on th video card, cpu mhz, memory, etc the psu is pure speculation, they did not even post the manufacturer of the machine, HP, Acer, Dell to name a few all ship machines with the newer low end nvidia cards and put a 220 to 250 watt psu in them.</blockquote>On the ultra low end systems they put a 220 to 250 in them, correct. Reason being is they are using an integrated video which uses about 13w. Even adding in a Radeon 6450 will take it to 31w usage for the video alone. I would recommend people keep the total power usage in mind when building or buying a system and upgrading. There are sites online that can calculate things for a PSU as well.Regardless of the video card I would be very hesitant to risk the money I spent on a system if the PSU is cheap. The build quality alone would be putting my investment at risk.</blockquote>Some of these "low end systems" as you put it are being sold as gaming systems and they do not have integrated cards installed, they have a addon Nvidia or ATI card.As far as low end PSU's I have built my boxes since the first 8086 system was available in a Altair kit from a box store called Heathkit. In my current run boxes I use one brand PSU and on size PSU - PCpower and Cooling's TurboCool 1200. I wrote a excel spreadsheet years ago to calculate the sizing of both total wattage and what is needed for each of the rails, prefer being able to verify the formulas used rather then taking the word of a online site.</blockquote>Again, build quality is very important. It's so important that every repair shop in America will warn you about buying cheap PSUs. And again, simply because a PSU claims it puts out a certain amperage on the 12v line doesn't mean it does. Same like that 80 Plus rating that some of the companies are cheating on. I remember years ago back in the early 1990s when the first 3D accelerators came out. Some of the magazines like PC Magazine began to benchmark them. Performance improved by leaps and bounds but then one day someone noticed something odd. It turned out that some of the companies were cheating with the drivers. Intel, with their Real3d, was one of those caught as was Matrox.I invite you to visit the Vintage Computer Forum where other old computer users from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, like me, hang out. Ask on the forum there how important the build quality is and what other factors of the PSU can do. Don't like that answer? Go to the NVIDIA forums. Still don't like it? HardOCP, AnandTech, Sharky Extreme, and more. ALL will tell you the same.You are asking a person to risk a major investment of money on a cheap component. It's such a concern that they were willing to ask here. If a normal computer user senses something is not quite right... it often is.In fact.... let me update this with just what ONE of the PSU companies says on the matter:<a href="http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/FAQ/FAQ_PSU_fundamentals.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/FAQ...ndamentals.html</a>"A low-quality PSU (or a PSU with insufficient wattage) can result in sudden rebooting, hardware failure, and not being able to turn on your computer"