Getting Repeated Message saying my video card is getting insufficient power

[J-Dude]

My computer has been designed and upgraded with graphics very much in mind. I work with 3d animation, and while I don't exactly run Crysis on max settings, I do okay with my NVidia 7950 GT 512 megabyte card.

But just today and last night, my gaphics card which has served me so faithfully and endured so much without protest for the past year and a half, has popped up a message window to tell me while I play a game like GMod or Team Fortress 2 that the card isn't getting the power it needs to use it's full potential, and that it's settings have been lowered to cope with it.

I've never recieved a message like this in all the time I've had it. This message popped up a few times, and I looked up this issue, and was told it usually meant a power connector for the card was unplugged.

I turned off my computer and took a look inside the machine, and could find nothing out of order. The cord in question was most certainly connected to the power supply, which by the way, I ALSO replaced when I bought the card in order to give the card the power it needed. I made sure the card was firm in it's slot, tightened the cord connection, just about everything I could think of before closing it up, powering the computer back on, and hoping it was a one time thing.

This however, was not to be. I started up TF2 and entered a server, almost immediately to be faced with the message again. However, this time it was unignorable. The performance drop was massive. I experienced clientside lag (lag having to do with my computer's graphical potential as opposed to the Internet acting up) like I'd never had during TF2. In fact, TF2 had NEVER before pushed my computer's limits and invoked lag. Any lag was always Internet based.

I find myself scared and extremely uncertain. Most things I do on my machine depend on that graphics card, and it's so expensive that replacing it if it's somehow wearing out is entirely out of the question since my place of work has been giving me so few shifts and so few hours lately. I simply can't afford it.



I beg anyone here with experience to help me. I'm nearly out of ideas, and I'm terrified of what could happen if this problem goes unsolved and does not eventually fix itself. Please help me.

 

[Tsunami]

could be a dieing PSU. which in turn will not be pumping out enough power.

 

[J-Dude]

could be a dieing PSU. which in turn will not be pumping out enough power.

A PSU?

*looks up*

Oh, my power supply?

That would be strange if it is. My older less powerful one lasted plenty longer than that (granted, it died in style by suddenly shutting down my whole computer and then never rebooting until it had been replaced).

Well, I've upgraded the driver for the card just in case. Seems a new one was released just a few days ago.

But, another inspection of the innards revealed something interesting.

As always, the supplemental power cord was connected through a series of hard-drive ports (none connected to anything but the card).

However, I found, tucked away in a cavity between the hard drive and the dvd drives, one such supplemental connector, which to my intrigue, connected straight to the power supply without any of the indirect hard drive junctions.

I shut the PC off and switched the current cord out for the unused one, and so far, I'm not seeing any problems. After this post, I'm going to start up Team Fortress 2 and see if the message pops up again. If not, I'll know for certain that the issue is fixed.

I find it strange however that this would suddenly become a problem, since this configuration has been in place since the card was installed.

I am, however, eager to see if perhaps the performance of my machine overall will improve with this direct connection in place of the junction conenction.

I'll return with my results.

 

[Brosiris]

If you can't keep it up....








Sounds like a personal problem.

Either way the problem is either your power supply or you video card itself. Just because it's an nvidia doesn't mean it's an amazing card. It depends on who makes it. I specifically paid more money for my 7950gt because it was made by evega. No problems with it at all. I've heard cheaper cards of the same kind with a different brand name have failed in the past.

However, if your video card isn't getting the power required, either A. It's becasue of the PSU. Or B. a cord from the PSU isn't transferring the amount of power needed, aka that cord is broken. Generally PSU's (such as mine) come with multiple cords for multiple different things. Just use a different plug, that should fix it, if not, it's the power supply itself.

 

[J-Dude]

If you can't keep it up....








Sounds like a personal problem.

Either way the problem is either your power supply or you video card itself. Just because it's an nvidia doesn't mean it's an amazing card. It depends on who makes it. I specifically paid more money for my 7950gt because it was made by evega. No problems with it at all. I've heard cheaper cards of the same kind with a different brand name have failed in the past.

However, if your video card isn't getting the power required, either A. It's becasue of the PSU. Or B. a cord from the PSU isn't transferring the amount of power needed, aka that cord is broken. Generally PSU's (such as mine) come with multiple cords for multiple different things. Just use a different plug, that should fix it, if not, it's the power supply itself.

Well, it seemed like it was going so well, but after starting a passworded sevrer on TF2 and leaving it on while picking up pizza, I minimize to find that effing message again.

My 7950 gt is also made by evga. I chose it because people were giving it rave reviews and talking of how efficient it is. I spent over $300
on it.


So, back to square one, and I'm plenty pissed. I really don't want to spend another small fortune to get my computer working properly again.

I'm seriously hoping for a power problem because of how expensive the card is. I'm not happy either way. If I go out and buy a new uber PSU and find out the graphics card has decided to crap out on me...I dunno, I just really don't need this kind of crap right now.

 

[Brosiris]

Well, it seemed like it was going so well, but after starting a passworded sevrer on TF2 and leaving it on while picking up pizza, I minimize to find that effing message again.

My 7950 gt is also made by evga. I chose it because people were giving it rave reviews and talking of how efficient it is. I spent over $300
on it.


So, back to square one, and I'm plenty pissed. I really don't want to spend another small fortune to get my computer working properly again.

I'm seriously hoping for a power problem because of how expensive the card is. I'm not happy either way. If I go out and buy a new uber PSU and find out the graphics card has decided to crap out on me...I dunno, I just really don't need this kind of crap right now.

Do you have another video card? Test the power supply. Although I'm going to assume it's not the PSU because it seems to be running the computer just fine. You never know. If you have another card, try it out. If not, try another PSU, if you don't have that, then I can't help ya =/

 

[J-Dude]

Do you have another video card? Test the power supply. Although I'm going to assume it's not the PSU because it seems to be running the computer just fine. You never know. If you have another card, try it out. If not, try another PSU, if you don't have that, then I can't help ya =/

My old card is a dinosaur of an ATI, and I'd rather not deal with the drivers. It doesn't need additional power either, so that wouldn't do me much good.

However, a friend of mine is a bit of a tech guru, and another online friend advised me to see if he has a recent NVidia card I'd be able to borrow for this test. And since Nvidia cards all seem to rely on the same driver, swapping cards would pretty much be plug and play.

I'll see about that tomorrow.

 

[Brosiris]

My old card is a dinosaur of an ATI, and I'd rather not deal with the drivers. It doesn't need additional power either, so that wouldn't do me much good.

However, a friend of mine is a bit of a tech guru, and another online friend advised me to see if he has a recent NVidia card I'd be able to borrow for this test. And since Nvidia cards all seem to rely on the same driver, swapping cards would pretty much be plug and play.

I'll see about that tomorrow.

Although it isn't that hard to just take a card out, put a new one in, insert the CD if you still have it, and dl new drivers. Or just dl new drivers. And you're done. You're not making a brand new computer, you're simply testing and making observations to weed out the problem. Although a slight inconvenience, it'll weed out the solution to your problem a little quicker, but you can do w/e you want I guess.

 

[DiebytheSword]

You may be able to fix this yourself, as even a system with enough voltage in it might cause this error if too many things are powered on that rail.

For example, if you have your HDD or DVD drives hooked up on that same rail, you might get that error because the dip in voltage is simply too much and the card faults power bad. Try moving the card to the "top" of a rail, meaning closest to the PSU, and then eliminate anything on that rail but the Card if you can. You might be able to put case fans and such back on that rail later.

Setting up the 12 volt plugs in your system can be a pain, I know, but you really need to map out what needs the voltage and what can be on the same rail. Try rearranging the rails and see what you get before you mess with your card or the PSU.

 

[J-Dude]

@Majin Me: Like I mentioned, the old video card doesn't require supplemental power, and worked fine with a much less spacious PSU when I used it. So it would be a waste to do the test with THAT card because more than likely it wouldn't complain if there WAS a power problem.

@Sword: I don't really know anything about rails...I don't even know what they ARE. But Originally, the cord I had connected the card to was designed to also connect to potentially several drives. After taking a look inside, I found there was a cord of the same type that plugged directly into the PSU with no hard drive connections, so I swapped it out for that one, and currently the card should be receiving the direct power it needs, if the PSU and card were working properly.

Thing is, I'm wondering if there's BEEN a problem, but it's only just decayed to this point now. Because since I've had to do a full system reset back to factory settings, I've found the machine has perhaps once every other day completely frozen beyond recovery. No cursor movement, audio loops whatever tone it had been playing at the time. A hard boot becomes the only option. But I don't know if that would be a power problem, or a graphics problem.

 

[Brosiris]

@Majin Me: Like I mentioned, the old video card doesn't require supplemental power, and worked fine with a much less spacious PSU when I used it. So it would be a waste to do the test with THAT card because more than likely it wouldn't complain if there WAS a power problem.

@Sword: I don't really know anything about rails...I don't even know what they ARE. But Originally, the cord I had connected the card to was designed to also connect to potentially several drives. After taking a look inside, I found there was a cord of the same type that plugged directly into the PSU with no hard drive connections, so I swapped it out for that one, and currently the card should be receiving the direct power it needs, if the PSU and card were working properly.

Thing is, I'm wondering if there's BEEN a problem, but it's only just decayed to this point now. Because since I've had to do a full system reset back to factory settings, I've found the machine has perhaps once every other day completely frozen beyond recovery. No cursor movement, audio loops whatever tone it had been playing at the time. A hard boot becomes the only option. But I don't know if that would be a power problem, or a graphics problem.

If there was a problem before your computer would have told you in some way or another.

And I wouldn't go around buying a new video card just yet, you don't know what the problem is. You're looking too far into things. You don't seem to want to take any advice so I guess I won't give you any.

 

[Kasey]

Did you try plugging your computer into a different power outlet or replacing the power cord? Also, did you try adjusting your power settings on your computer when it boots up? If i remember correctly you can up the voltage of your PSU it might be on the boot up screen or the PSU itself. If you somehow got a virus or something it could change these settings.

 

[J-Dude]

If there was a problem before your computer would have told you in some way or another.

And I wouldn't go around buying a new video card just yet, you don't know what the problem is. You're looking too far into things. You don't seem to want to take any advice so I guess I won't give you any.

Excuse me? What the ****? I've listened to everything you've said! My old card was much weaker and didn't use supplemental power, it wouldn't have complained about the power either way, and in the end I wouldn't have solved anything. As to power cords, I don't know. My brother has a desktop I might be able to take from to test.

I don't know exactly how to regulate power in my machine. If anyone knows how, I'd appreciate being informed. I ran a recent virus scan and didn't detect anything out of the ordinary.

I spoke with my neighbor, and he directed me to pick up a PSU. Said I could get a Thermaltake unit from a nearby Radio Shack for 40-60 dollars, and he seems to swear by the quality of the brand.

The way I figure, I'd know if it worked or not pretty fast and could return it quickly and easily if needed. But I'll definitely see about the power cords before all that.

 

[harSens]

To test your voltage in the most reliable way, you could just plug a volt-meter in another plug on the same cable that connects to your videocard. That way you can easily check the voltage under load too. If you don't have a volt meter, or if you're not comfortable with doing that, there are some hardware-monitor programs that can check your voltage, or you can check in the bios.

 

[Brosiris]

Excuse me? What the ****? I've listened to everything you've said! My old card was much weaker and didn't use supplemental power, it wouldn't have complained about the power either way, and in the end I wouldn't have solved anything. As to power cords, I don't know. My brother has a desktop I might be able to take from to test.

I don't know exactly how to regulate power in my machine. If anyone knows how, I'd appreciate being informed. I ran a recent virus scan and didn't detect anything out of the ordinary.

I spoke with my neighbor, and he directed me to pick up a PSU. Said I could get a Thermaltake unit from a nearby Radio Shack for 40-60 dollars, and he seems to swear by the quality of the brand.

The way I figure, I'd know if it worked or not pretty fast and could return it quickly and easily if needed. But I'll definitely see about the power cords before all that.

I'd like to know how you know this for sure. You're evga seemed to handle everything fine up until now. How do you know it'll be the same for your "dinosaur" card.

 

[J-Dude]

I'd like to know how you know this for sure. You're evga seemed to handle everything fine up until now. How do you know it'll be the same for your "dinosaur" card.

The old card didn't need any sort of extra power to work. It worked with an old 350 watt and never complained. I just tested TF2 on the current card at lowest settings and haven't received any complaints from the system. There would need to be one Hell of a leak in power for it to affect my old card.

The way I see it, I can go get a new, quality and cheap PSU and see if it changes anything. Worst case scenario, it doesn't, and I drive less than a mile to return it. Then, I buy the 8800gts.

And if the problem still isn't solved, meaning the 7950gt is fine, I sell it on ebay and get plenty of my investment back, and use the proceeds to figure out the true root of the problem. My neighbor said it could even be the Motherboard, though he didn't think it was.

 

[Prozac]

8800GT* not gts

Judging from that image, this card needs a 6pin cable running to it from the PSU. ( little black bocks all the way at the top! )
so make sure it's connected because this is the message you get when your card does not have the extra cable plugged in.


now I honestly say that I haven't read the entire topic, so if someone suggested this.. sorry
but just try to plug in the cable again.

 

[Brosiris]

The old card didn't need any sort of extra power to work. It worked with an old 350 watt and never complained. I just tested TF2 on the current card at lowest settings and haven't received any complaints from the system. There would need to be one Hell of a leak in power for it to affect my old card.

The way I see it, I can go get a new, quality and cheap PSU and see if it changes anything. Worst case scenario, it doesn't, and I drive less than a mile to return it. Then, I buy the 8800gts.

And if the problem still isn't solved, meaning the 7950gt is fine, I sell it on ebay and get plenty of my investment back, and use the proceeds to figure out the true root of the problem. My neighbor said it could even be the Motherboard, though he didn't think it was.

My entire computer, as beastly as it is, only needs a 250 watt psu....

Yet I have a 1000 watt psu because I can.

 

[Rubycat]

The total wattage of the power supply isn't as critical a factor, as its the volts on the rails (single or multiple) that determine whether or not your hardware is being sufficiently powered.

 

[J-Dude]

Well, did a number of things. Got some PC optimization software that did a lot of things, like repair over 400 errors in my registry. Defragged, went through my hard drive and deleted about 30 gigs of unecessary files and their first born sons. Basically, my computer is in the pink of health, software wise.

My new 600 Watt PSU arrived today. I extracted my old 500 Watt and plugged the new, but mildly compacter supply in. I liked that it arranged all it's cords into neat little black mesh sleeves, made organization easy, though there are way too many different cords for my needs. Plus it has a nice little blue LED that shines when the PC is on, and since my power button already has such an LED, it matches very well visually. Very quiet thing. And so far, it's working very nicely with my machine.

But...

That nasty little message still shows it's ugly face.

I hadn't really expected the PSU to be the real problem. I'd intended from the start to buy both a new 600 watt and a new video card, but the PSU was much cheaper than the card, and I thought if the PSU solved my problem, then I could wait a little while to upgrade the card. And besides, if I'd bought the card rather than the PSU, I wouldn't have had enough money to pay my monthly payment on my student loan, so it was really the only option immediately available to me that had a chance of truly solving the issue.

And so now, I must wait at LEAST until my upcoming paycheck to replace the card and put this nonsense behind me. Unless, of course, all else fails, and the motherboard is the true problem. I pray it is not.