Newbie has questions about 6800 GT

[Razorbacx]

Before I begin let me give you a break down of my current system, so as to provide more details as to my current situation:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Core (skt 939)
Abit AV8 Mobo
nVidia 6800 GT (Leadtek Winfast A400 GT TDH)
1 GB Corsair TWINX1024-3200 DDR 400 Dual Channel Memory (2 512mb sticks)
Western Digital 80GB HD (ATA133)
BenQ DVD-RW Drive
All wrapped up in a CoolerMaster Cavalier 1 case with a 350W CoolerMaster Extreme Power PSU. I am also runing WIN XP Professional.

That is it. My system is simple, as I like it and I have not OC'ed anything to date, mostly due to my PSU, which is lacking. My video card just took a dump, but Leadtek is fixing it under warranty. I turned my pc on one day and all I got was a totally pixilated screen and then ultimately all went black. Booted it up in Safe Mode, deleted the video drivers, dl'ed the newest drivers, booted up in normal mode and attempted to install new drivers and got the same problem. Deleted drivers and then contacted Leadtek to get things rolling on a repair. Installed a borrowed video card and everything is working, although I must say that I am completely spoiled with my 6800 GT and can't wait to get it back.

My worries are that my PSU might have contributed to the problem, although I cannot verify that. The required bare minimum is a 350W PSU, which I have, but is it enough? They recommend that it is not sharing power and this is where I am a little confused. In a sense it does share power as the dongle is one of four dongles along the one power cable that I have coming out of my PSU. One to the DVD drive, one to the HD and the third to my video card. Is this a problem that will go away with a new and better PSU or is it a problem at all? I know that I need to upgrade my PSU, that is a given, but will I solve this power issue that in my mind atleast appears to be an issue or am I worrying about nothing?

One more thing...in my Mobo's instruction manual it mentions that it does not support a video card that requires 3.3v, but instead it supports a 1.5v card. What does this actually mean and am I in compliance?

Thank you in advance.

Razorbacx

[Apoptosis]

There is no way to verify what exactly happened, but the next upgrade I'd do to your PSU would be to get a 450+ Watt PSU.

How many volts does your 12Volt rail have (Look at the sticker on the side of the PSU)

[Razorbacx]

Thank you for your response.

The 12V rail shows 16 amps and according to your repsonse on my other post, I assume that is bad. Alright, so my PSU sucks and the Thermaltake that I mentioned in my other post is not the way to go either. What are you thoughts on the 450W OCZ Mod Stream? I've found that for around $80.00, plus it's modular. Money is, as always, tight and I cannot afford top of the line, so if you can make some reasonable suggestions with regards to make & model it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

Razorbacx

[dicecca112]

avoid the modstreams, they tend to not power too well especially if you overclock. Look at Fortron they are cheap and are of very high quality