WoW

[plonq]

My computer still isn't entirely happy - it gives me warnings on boot-up that the video card is not getting enough power.  I picked up a 480W Antec power supply today which should be cranking out enough juice to power all the computers in a small office, so the problem obviously lies elsewhere.

On the other hand, everything seems to be running fine now - leastwise there are no more lockups, crashes, or unexpected power losses.  I may have to do some digging on the manufacturer's site and see if they have any insight into this.

I decided to put my new system to the test, so we picked up a copy of World of Warcraft for me while we were out buying a power supply today.  I ran around taking care of various newbie quests before I wandered off and hooked up with atara.  She had a few things to do as well, and kindly let me tag along so that I could catch a bit of experience along the way.  I decided to go with a Horde character, and tossed together an undead warlock named Ulron.

Comments

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Did I miss a post or is this the first time you mention the problem? :P

Never had that problem myself, but I would sure check it out, may be an incompatibility with the motherboard?
If so I'd change the video card asap, before both die and void waranty..

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Heh. No, you didn't miss a post where I mentioned a problem because I was spending my time trying to get the computer working and too busy to post.

The first problem came when my power supply was inadequate to the task of powering the new motherboard combo. My old 300W was right out, so I temporarily borrowed a 450W (imagine me making finger-quotes around the 450) supply from a friend until a more robust 370W one returned from the manufacturer (we returned it because the fan ceased).

The 450 didn't cut it. The video card complained about being underpowered at first (until I unplugged a couple of other components), then it was happy, but the system scrammed when I put it under any serious stress. Yesterday I picked up an Antec 480W supply and dropped that in. Everything is running fast and stable, but my video card still complains on boot-up that it is being underpowered.

It should be quite happy with the level of power its getting, so if it's unhappy then there is an issue with the board, the card itself, or the power supply. I'm going to pick up a Y adapter today and run a lead to the plug on the MoBo that you normally only use when you are running dual cards. Ideally I should probably take the card back and have them test it on one of their machines. If it's a defective card I'd prefer to know sooner rather than later.

[tamarik.livejournal.com]

I'm still playing FFXI. :)

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I never even made it all the way through FFVII. I eventually gave up on it because it had issues with my Turtle Beach sound card. By "issues" I mean that the game would crank up all of my volume controls to MAX, and I couldn't over-ride it anywhere. All I could do was turn down the volume on my speakers and deal with the distorted sound.

It wasn't the game at fault, mind you, but the flaky drivers for the Turtle Beach card (and they refused to release any updates or fixes).

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Is it one of those cards that demands you connect one of the power supply cables directly to it? EZ-Bake cards...

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Yup. I think that's becoming standard for most of the newer "performance" cards now.

[gedrean.livejournal.com]

Actually if the "Direct connnect" power connection isn't there most of the nVidia's tend to be underpowered. You just can't pull that type of wattage from the AGP slot. If it's there and not working, it's PROBABLY a bad card. I really doubt it's the fault of the mobo, because if the mobo isn't powering the card right then some other things may be at fault too. Besides, if it weren't powering right, you probably wouldn't have any video at all.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

The video card is a PCI-EX as opposed to AGP, but the same principle holds true to what you've said.

The card has a secondary, 6-pin power connector, and comes with an adapter cable so that I could hook up power to it. The new power supply has 2 6-pin connectors for video cards, but I tried both cables and got the same message when I booted up.

The video driver informs me that the card is not getting enough power, and that it is running in a slower, low-power mode to avoid damage to my system. It _might_ be a software problem for that matter. I'll uninstall the drivers and reinstall them again later tonight to see if that solves things. If not, then I'm going to assume that it's a bad video card and treat it accordingly.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

If it complains at boot (during post) then it probably isn't a driver issue :P

[plonq.livejournal.com]

It doesn't complain about it during post, it complains about it with a requester after Windows loads.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaah! That makes sense then ^^

[plonq.livejournal.com]

That's why it could be a driver issue - though I'm leaning more toward hardware than driver at this point. In any event I spent enough on this card that I think I'm entitled to one that works right the first time. =/

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know the feeling :/