What happens when your PSU doesn't have enough juice for a video card?

[xboxist]

Will the card simply not work, ever? Will it act weird? Will it explode? Seriously, I've never dealt with such a possibility.

In case you're wondering... I've bought a 6800GT. My PSU is 250W, but it's a Dell... and I've read that they rate their PSU's fairly conservatively. I also have a fairly basic system, running power just to a 9800 Pro, one hard drive, and two optical drives. So I was hoping that the new card would work fine.

The card is due to arrive tomorrow.

Thanks.

 

[Schadenfroh]

instability

 

[DragonFire]

Since I dunno what motherboards Dell uses I cant be for sure but if I unplug my 9800 Pro and try turing my computer on I'll get annoying sound from the pc speaker and a msg on my screen saying that its not plugged it. My computer wont post intill I do plug it in.

My best guess is that you wont have any video output to the monitor when you start your computer up. Since its only 250W and depending how how cheap it is, there could be a chance that when you start your computer there will be such a huge draw from the psu that it will die.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
instability

 

[thelanx]

I had a cheap psu which I suspected was putting out low and/or unstable rails. The symptoms were core artifacts at stock speeds on my AIW9700pro. I had to underclock the core a bit to get rid of the artifacts. I changed the psu to a much more reliable one and everything was fine. This is probably only one of many possible situations.

 

[Bateluer]

Instability, artifacts, freezes, hangups, reduced performance . . . I seriously doubt you'll be able to run a GT on a 250W PSU, the minimum is a 350W, if memory serves.

 

[BFG10K]

Anything from ranging from refusing to boot to just silently dropping back to the desktop.

 

[looper]

Time for new PS...

I just bought BFG 6800Gt at Best Buy, and PC Power & Cooling 510 Deluxe PS ( about $200. I think) direct from Company. Do it... can't believe what Doom 3 looks like... and my wife thought the game was for my son...

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Instability, artifacts, freezes, hangups, reduced performance . . . I seriously doubt you'll be able to run a GT on a 250W PSU, the minimum is a 350W, if memory serves.

They have been known to run before on 250w psus, but im not sure which brand, and what they all had connected. Maybe if you disconnect a cdrom drive, floppy, use onboard sound and the minimal pci cards, you MIGHT be able to run it if you are lucky. You can find a good psu often times in the hot deals forums for $30-$40. I got my antec 400w psu for $33 and it serves me well. This could be a very cost effective upgrade for you. I'm sure its not too much if you are paying all that money for a GT in the first place.

 

[Kishan]

this is what happened in my case, at least:
when playing need for speed underground i would burn out the wheels, and the frame rates on my 9800 pro would drop. Also, after leaving the computer overnight, it would shut off. From a generic 380watt to an antec true430 made a big difference. Since you have close to 700 posts, you've seen that everyone reccomends getting a name brand power supply, and you should as well. I didn't listen and it happened to me.
Good Luck
Kishan

 

[Insomniak]

Crashes, somestimes refusal to boot...

 

[artemedes]

When the Antec 400w that came with the case died I couldn't even boot with a decent vid card. Funny thing is since it worked with an PCI card and my old matrox G400 agp I thought my ti4400 had bit the dust so I bought a new video card and it wouldn't boot either. As soon as I bought a new power supply everything worked great.

But since you have a Dell you may not be able to just go buy a new power supply. In the past Dell would move a couple of wires on both the ATX power supply and the motherboard so that they were not standard. You could connect them but if you tried changing either you mb or Psu it would likely fry one or both because of the non-standard pin arrangement.

 

[NewportDadde]

You'll be fine. The Dell PSU are much better then they say. I'm running a Radeon 9800 pro in a Dimension 8200 with HD, CD-rom,Floppy, NIC card, Sound Card and not having any issues beyond one with Counterstrike and I think thats more of a settings issue not a power issue.

 

[JBT]

Many Shuttle PC's with 250's run GT's no problem. I mean 9800 XT's get sold with some Dells and they use more power than GT's do.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

my 9500pro works ok with my generic 375 watter......but most times hdd's fail to spin up

 

[xboxist]

I just wanted to follow-up on this thread. I have had my 6800GT installed in my computer for the past 3 days now. It's running fine and smooth with my Dell 250W PSU. I've stressed it quite a bit by looping 3dmark03 several times and by playing a couple of extended sessions of Doom3. It's runs at 55 degrees celcius on idle and peaks at 70 when stressed.

Hopefully this will last me, and thanks for all of your help.