PSU questionFollow

I've been getting some errors occasionally with my GPU, and in the process of figuring it out, I've narrowed it down to the GPU itself, or the PSU. I haven't really paid much attention to power supplies over the years so I don't know if this is normal behavior or not.

During Idle the 12v averages about 11.85v, and when I put everything at full load (cpu, gpu, hdd) it decreases to 11.42v. It's not much of a drop, but I'm thinking it could be the problem. Any thoughts?

As the PSU heats up. its transfer becomes less efficient. Obviously you want it as close to 12v as possible. The issue is less of a problem with the higher end multi rail PSU's such as the ones Enermax makes, and can be particularily a problem on the cheap generic ones. Blow any dust in the PSU out as best you can, if that doesn't do the trick, consider upgrading to something a bit higher end.

Hah! Reminds me of crap my old Atari 2600 used to pull.

One way to check for VRAM issues is to look in your Windows Event Log for errors 500 and 501. The VRAM in my GeForce 9600 is beginning to fritz out, and those are the errors I've gotten left and right. "Windows Desktop Experience has degraded."

Don't have one of those.



Well everything is under warranty right now, and has been stable for months, save for the few GPU errors. Can't live without my computer on. Guess I'll start looking for a good deal on a PSU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152035

Was looking at this one, anyone suggest something different? I'm fairly broke pretty much of the time.

PSUs are one area where you really shouldn't skimp. This would be my recommendation.

It's been nice knowing your computer.

Raidmax has a reputation for building bad power supplies. I would look really hard at any power supply claiming 85% efficiency and isn't even certified 80+.


Edit note
replaced had with has

Edited, Mar 16th 2011 11:15am by nyopo