Is my underpowered PSU to blame?
 

Hello all,

Before I present my issue, here is my rig:

PII X4 BE 3.6 OC'ed to 4.0, 1.400v
GTX 560ti 448 Core
4x2GB DDR3 1333 1.6v
WD Black 1TB HDD
Vertex 2 SSD
Sound Blaster PCI card
Aftermarket Heatsink/Fan for processor
5 LED case fans

Old PSU: Antec 650w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371015
Test PSU: Thermaltake 850w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817153158


I've recently gotten back into playing BF3, I think I remember why I stopped a while ago. On somewhat frequent occurrences, my computer would simply crash and force me to restart when I was playing BF3. It would happen only after I'd been playing for at least 20 mins, but it would only be when I was playing BF3. I wouldn't have too much else open, Skype for chatting and maybe Chrome, but that's about it.

Gfx load during BF3 is ~90%-99%.

So, I went out and purchased a Thermaltake 850w to swap out from my old Antec 650w, and for the two days of pretty solid BF3 playing, I haven't had it crash yet.

My question to my fellow hardware-ers, would it be possible that my old Antec 650w simply can't keep up steady power to my rig?

Thanks in advance!

Sounds like it. What model Antec? What model Tt?
The links are broken.

The actual computer isn't eating anything close to 650w, but that doesn't mean the PSU can't degrade till it won't run it correctly.

I'd bet on dusty fan/heatsink on video card or the CPU first.

Then video card drivers

Then I'd bet on memory issues (run memtest, clean the slots of dust)

System's gonna use 200-250w , even a crappy psu would do that much,.

@bobnova:
Sorry about the links. My Antec is the Earthwatts EA650 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371015

And the Thermaltake is a SMART M Series SP-850M 850W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153158

@mariush:
I thoroughly dusted/cleaned out my rig about 2 months ago, and have filters on all of the intake fans. I've also tried 3 different sets of drivers, two WHQL and one beta, and found one that crashes less than the others. And... as for memtest, I ran it when this was first happening a couple of months ago and after 8+hours, had no errors reported.

Thanks guys for the input so far, I'm still tinkering with some stuff. I'm going to stress test with Kombustor and see if I can't replicate the crash outside of BF3

I should also note that my Antec is probably going on 4+ years old, with moderate use almost every day.

That's not correct. Phenom II OC'ed to 4GHz can break 200 watts all by itself.

You could have tested this without the new psu. Just Underclock the cpu to 2.4 Ghz and drop the voltage to 1.2v. That would have reduced CPU draw by over 100 watts. That would have told you if excessive power draw was the problem.

Although your old Antec PSU isn't underpowered for your PC, it could have very well been an aged PSU that could no longer handle the load causing the reboots. Suspect some swollen caps, etc.

If the PSU was actually overloaded, it should have shut down. But a bad PSU can certainly cause the PC to reboot.

I'm fairly certain that its my old PSU. I've been using the new PSU very extensively over the past couple of days without any incident. So, now I'm deciding between two different PSUs:

Corsair TX650w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139031
Corsair TX750w http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139030
OCZ ZT Series 750W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341052

I'm looking for a modular PSU that has good future-readiness. Any other recommendations would be appreciated!

You can get a Seasonic G series or a Rosewill Capstone for that kind of money... 500W would also be plenty.

Opent the EA 650 up and check the secondary caps, maybe take some pics and upload them, so we can see what's up.