New Power Supply problems

[v0lten]

Hey everyone,
Well Ill get right too it...
Here are my system specs.

p4 3.0ghz w/ HT OC'd to 3.3
1 gig of RAM
7800GS CO Edition 8xAGP GFX card
Sound Blaster Live
3 Case fans....
Aspire ATX-AS520W 12v PSU

Heres the deal, I bought my 7800GS card to get a better FPS on CS:S... I installed it and noticed a very small gain in FPS compared to my FX 5500. I was pretty annoyed. I did EVERYTHING I could think of to tweak the card to run better, but to no avail. Then I got a suggestion that the card might not be getting enough power, I had a 450w psu with a 16a +12v. That, of course, is not enough amps to power it fully. I downloaded a program called Speedfan that monitors all you voltages, temperatures and, speeds. The voltage on the +12v rail was jumping from 4v to 10v and spiking on and off in a random pattern. So I figured I needed a really nice PSU. I searched Newegg and found this {URL=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817148008]My PSU I bought[/URL] I installed it and was thinking that when I ran Speedfan it would be able to hold at least the steady 11.75v recommended for my card. Well, again I was dissapointed. The spikes were the same, just alittle higher, I get spikes from 6v to 13v. Now Im at a point where I think its something to do with my BIOS or something. I dont know, and thats why Im asking for all of your help. I see everyone always talking about how their cheap PSU's hold a steady 11.1v and it never goes below that. I would love to have even that at this point, lol.

And I know its the PSU that is giving me such crappy FPS in CS:S because for the 2 seconds that it spikes above 12V I get like 80fps, and when its below, I get below 30 fps.

Well, if anyone has any suggestions as to what is causing this horrible spiking, PLEASE submit them. I appreciate any of your help and thanks for reading my long post. Have a good one fellas

 

[jeremy]

its more likely a driver/cpu usage/card power connector issue

what driver your using? also is v-sync (vertical sync) disabled?
check ctrl+alt+del for cpu usage maybe some program or malware is taking too much , did you connect the power plug to the card?

those reading are defintly wrong it cant possibly be that low , check voltages in bios or use the mobo manufacturer software and youll see..

anyway bad choice on psu , aspire psus are cheap crap but some of em are overpriced for no good reason, their known to be unstable/short lasting and some of em fry other parts when they fail.. , i suggest youll return it and take antec truepower 2 430w instead

 

[v0lten]

I dont think its a driver or computer usage problem... I have very little running in the back ground, no viruses, no anything. The PSU seems to run slightly better when Im actually playing the game. It will spike to above 12v and hold for a few seconds up to a minute and then spike down. When Im not in the game its just up and down, right now, its reading at about 5v.


It just seems weird, like its not the PSU that is the problem. Because my old PSU was spiking just like this one. Im gunna do some searches on here to see if anyone has a like problem. Thanks for your advice.

edit: v-sync is off and the card is plugged into the PSU with one of the 4pronged peripherials.

 

[jeremy]

in many similar cases it was a driver issue , and cpu usage more correctly (cpu=processor) , so what driver are you using? , and as i alredy said that voltage reading is defintly wrong

check voltages in bios or use the mobo manufacturer software and youll see..

you welcome

 

[v0lten]

Umm, Im not sure which driver I am using.

I lost my Motherboards CD that had drivers on it. Its a PC-Chips MB and I looked around the internet to try to find maybe an updated driver or something, but I had no luck in finding one for my model.

It says P21G v3.1 on the MB.

I checked my BIOS to see if I could find the +12v readings, it has just about all the readings except the +12v. Im now looking for more programs that monitor voltage.

 

[jeremy]

i tought it was obvious but guess not , i meant the video card driver
theres 2 possible reasons for the bios not showing the +12v:
1) a bios issue , updating might fix it
2) the sensor itself cant read the +12v

i suggest youll get a digital multimeter from some local electronic store should cost 8-14$ , measure the +12v voltage with it , it will give the most accurate reading , adjust it to 20 DCV if its a manual one or DCV if its auto ranging , use one of the molex plugs put the red test lead to the yellow wire & the black to one of the black wires

 

[v0lten]

Oh, yeah, Ive tried every driver for my card, all the new ones, all different betas. Nothing is working right.

My card should easily be getting 60+fps on CS:S in full action with high settings. But, it drops below 30fps. When Speedfan is showing me that the voltage is dropping below 10, thats when my FPS drops. If the voltage is above 11.5, my fps is where it should be.

I dont have a multimeter around right now to test it, I will get one tommorow.

Is there a way I can get a new BIOS setup utility? There are a lot of things in the setup that Im not familiar with either.

for example;

Aperture Size Select
DRAM Timing
DRAM Driving
Allocate IRQ to PCI VGA
PCI IDE Busmaster

and just a whole bunch of things that I dont know what they are and i dont know if they are setup correctly.

Anyways, thanks for your help. Even if my PSU is giving good voltage, theres still the problem of low FPS.

 

[jeremy]

its possible the card is faulty , you can get a new version that have some fixes/newer cpus support but not an entirly diffrent bios , ive checked the bios verison history of that mobo on pcchips site and it seems updating it wont fix the issue

Aperture Size - http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/43
basicly its how much system ram the video card will use if a game ever uses all of its onboard ram

DRAM Timing - ram timings , usally should be set to auto/spd unless overclocking , in auto/spd mode the bios reads the timings directly from the ram stick/s , timings explained:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6859

DRAM Driving - dont know , look on the mobo pdf manual

Allocate IRQ to PCI VGA - should be disabled unless using a pci video card , irq definition: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=define:irq&btnG=Search&meta=

PCI IDE Busmaster - should be enabled,improves data transfer rates
http://www.rojakpot.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=128

edit check if agp sideband adressing/fast write are enabled in bios , if not then enable em , not sure it will help but maybe it will

 

[jeremy]

not sure it will help but worth a shot , get the latest chipset driver
http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/VIA_HyperionPro_V508A.zip , before installing uninstall the current