Help! Corsair TX750 and a GTX 280 are not playing nice!

[Ryoshi]

Alright now, I know that the GTX 280 is a huge power hog - 40A down the +12v and all that. So I bought a power supply (this one here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139006) and got everything plugged in.

Turned on my system, everything was running fine, the unit was nice and quiet, it was great. Then I made the mistake of popping in Crysis to see if everything would stay quiet and continue running.

It didn't.

I got to load a level, and as soon as the level was done loading up the infamous red LED on the back of the GTX was on and the signal to my monitor had been cut. Great. I shut everything down and rebooted, and everything seemed to be fine. I figured hey, whatever, I was going to use this as a backup anyways (my first Tagan BZ 800 practically exploded, but #2 seems to be doing quite well) and it's not exactly like a backup needs to be able to run Crysis. But....then I loaded up Peggle and the same thing happened. I don't think that Peggle is especially taxing to a graphics card, so I don't know.

So here I am, asking you all for advice. I don't know all that much about power supplies (although this site has been amazingly informative so far - thanks JonnyGURU!) and I'm wondering if a) the PSU is faulty or if I've done something stupid or b) my math is off and somehow I'm drawing way too much power for the PSU to put out (not likely though - I thought a GTX 280 used a max of 550w?)

Thanks in advance.

[Spectre]

The GTX280 does not use 40A at 12v

[Ryoshi]

Uh, are you sure? Because everything I've seen seems to claim otherwise. Your postcount makes me think you know what you're talking about and I'm missing something somewhere though - care to elaborate?

[Spectre]

Originally Posted by Ryoshi

Uh, are you sure? Because everything I've seen seems to claim otherwise. Your postcount makes me think you know what you're talking about and I'm missing something somewhere though - care to elaborate?

40A at 12v would be 480w. Given an 8pin PCI-Express connector can supply only 150W, a 6 pin 75W and a PCI-E slot only gives 75W well you can see where you can't even supply the card with 40A by the spec

Beyond that the majority of total power figures reported by reviews are total system draw. Very few people have the proper equipment or know how to actually isolate a videocards draw.

[jonnyGURU]

A decent 65W can run a single GTX 280. Your problem isn't that the PSU isn't enough.

You have bad hardware somewhere. Hopefully it's just a bad PSU. But it's not that the PSU isn't enough.

[Ryoshi]

*Sigh* I was afraid of that. Oh well, thanks a ton for the quick help. I think it is, in fact, the PSU since the other one seems to work fine (minus a really annoying buzz at times.)

[burebista]

Originally Posted by Ryoshi

Alright now, I know that the GTX 280 is a huge power hog - 40A down the +12v and all that.

Think again.

[Smirnoff]

Yeah, 40A is the recommendation from the PSU manufacturer, but that's them taking the power draw for the entire system into consideration. Of course, it's easy to misinterpret the somewhat vague statement about power requirements, and think it applies to the card itself. As stated, investigate some more before going out and getting another PSU, nothing is more annyoing than to replace a part and still having the same issues.

[Valset]

Originally Posted by Ryoshi

*Sigh* I was afraid of that. Oh well, thanks a ton for the quick help. I think it is, in fact, the PSU since the other one seems to work fine (minus a really annoying buzz at times.)

actually I have both your PSU and video card, check the PCI power connectors and make sure they are in all the way. as I remember it took me a couple of times due to the fit being overly tight. The XT750 does not even blink at running a GTX280, hell my fan doesn't even speed up.