Rig setup PSU Issue?

[patical]

I have the following rig setup:

AMD 64 X2 4200+
ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe
2 GB Kingston Hyper-X memory
BFG Geforce 6800 GT OC
Seagate 120 GB - dual boot Windows XP SP2 and Ubuntu
Seagate 160 GB - storage drive NTFS mount
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm
1x CD-RW/DVD-RW drive
2x 120 mm fans (front and rear)
Athena Power AP-P4ATX50F12 ATX12V 500W (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16817104123)
ANTEC P160 Case

A few months ago I added the Seagate 160 GB hard drive which was fine for a couple of months but then started failing. I read up on some forums that the Athena 12V line runs a little low (checking my bios i see it usually is in the range of 11.25V to 11.64V).

So I decided to unplug it and use it only when I wanted to copy music over to my MP3 player.

2 weeks ago I upgraded to the X2 4200 and started experiencing issues with my video card where I the graphics card would lock up while playing games like HL2, DoD, Q4, and BF2. I thought nothing of this until I plugged the 2nd hard drive back in and it took forever to boot Windows. I restarted after a quick Windows update and exited into the BIOS only to see a bunch of jibberish in the IDE Slave #1 field where it used to have the Seagate 160 GB identifier.

I tried reconnecting cables in a few different ways, but to no avail. I then unplugged my primary hard drive, plugged that molex into the 160 GB, and booted into the BIOS. Sure enough the 160 GB was identified.

As a secondary test I tried loading the hard drive into a Dell Ubuntu box and it mounted the drive fine. Keep in mind that box has only a 330W PSU.

The BFG and the ASUS board are both extreme power hogs so I'm assuming that when I have the 2nd drive plugged in I'm not getting enough juice regardless of how I wire the thing.

Does anyone else think differently? I've seen plenty of configs that run of 500W PSU and run SLI and have no issues like I do......

 

[patical]

Alright, so I RMA'd my video card with BFG and they sent me a brand spanking new 6800 GT OC which was working ok until about two weeks ago. Also, I upgraded my PSU to a 700w OCZ with dual 12v rails.

Now, whenever I power on the computer, the red light (indicating that the card is getting power) flashes briefly and then goes out. The card is not getting any power.

Two weeks ago I was able to simply power off and power back on a couple minutes later and the card would start receiving power. Now it doesn't.

I tried the other 2nd 12v rail with no luck either. I've reseated the card in both PCie slots with no luck.

I've also tried a WinFast 6200 LE I had lying around and a BFG 7600 GT I borrowed from a friend that both work perfectly (however, neither require a 12v rail).

I swapped back to my older power supply and was still experiencing the same problem. I want to chock this up to a faulty motherboard, but this seems to be more of a video card related problem

FYI: whenever the 6800 GT boots the motherboard POSTS: "System failed VGA test"

Any ideas?

 

[Farmer]

You ever try swapping mobos, or PCI-E slots?

I don't know if that's the problem, since it seems to relate to the 12V source. I mean, given your PSU, it should supply more than enough current on a single 12V rail for that card (I ran a 6800 Ultra on piss-poor 500W PSU for about a year).

 

[patical]

I tried swapping pcie slots with no luck. I have a spare mobo, but have yet to do that.

 

[patical]

I took the video card to a local computer shop and they hooked it up to their gaming test rig and it didn't power on either. Looks like its time for another RMA.

 

[Farmer]

Originally posted by: patical
I took the video card to a local computer shop and they hooked ot up to their gaming test rig and it didn't power on either. Looks like its time for another RMA.

Tough luck man.

Try out the Sapphire X1950XT. It's a big kick up from a 6800GT, and it's at pricing sweet-spot right now of $170.

 

[patical]

Does anyone think that the motherboard could be frying the video card? It just doesn't make sense to me that three weeks after an RMA the replacement is tanked. I mean, I'm really good about waiting to power down and I never leave my computer on when its not in use for an extended period of time.