GTX 470 SOC edition power phase LEDs constantly on?

[joker]

Hi everyone. Hopefully someone will be able to help me as I haven't been able to find any information on this. Basically as the title suggests my gpu leds' are constantly illuminated. All twelve. According to GPU-Z the card is definately throttling down. I thought it may have been due to running two monitors so I uninstalled one. The problem was still there. The only difference was the memory frequency throttled down as it was only having to run the one monitor. I am running windows 7 64 bit. Any ideas?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte UK Forum.

Are you overclocking anything in your system?

Have you fitted both the power cables to the GPU?

What other items are you running in your computer?

[joker]

Hi and thanks for the reply. The gpu is running at default speeds. My q6700 is running @ 3.33ghz 1.302 volts. Prime 95 stable. I still have the problem with gpu even if i reset cpu to defaults. My psu is an antec true power 650 watts. Motherboard is an asus p5q deluxe with 4gb corsair pc6400 ram. The card seems to be running fine its just the lights don't seem to be working and i was wondering if it was a windows 7 64 bit issue? i am using the latest nvidia drivers and have both pci-e connectors in.

[Dark Mantis]

i am using the latest nvidia drivers and have both pci-e connectors in.

There has been quite a lot of problems with the last few driver releases so it is possibly down to that.
When you said PCIE connectors I take it you meant the PSU connections to the graphics card?

[joker]

Everything is connected up properly. I thought i would have better drivers moving back to the green team! this card is a replacement for an hd5850 which was so unstable in 2d.

[Dark Mantis]

The other thing that could be causing you a problem is your PSU. There are 4 x 12V rails on yours and that basically splits the total output power into four. If you look on page 5 of the manual here you will see what I mean:

http://www.antec.com/pdf/manuals/TP-650_Manual_EN.pdf

With todays high power devices like GPUs they can draw more power from the one rail than it can supply and this gives problems especailly when booting. The only thing you could do that might help is to use two seperate rails for the GPU power supply.

[joker]

Good spot! If that was the problem then the card would be working correctly but lights would not function correctly? if thats the case am i better off ignoring the lights being on constantly? it is nearly xmas after all!

[Dark Mantis]

I am not sure of the implications of running it in an underpowered state for any length of time but as you say it will look nice as an extra Christmas decoration.

[joker]

Is this function with the leds only available with oc guru installed or is it hardware activated? Just been searching online for any information and it seems someone detailed a similar problem to mine. They said the power phase lights functioned correctly on xp with latest nvidia drivers and oc guru but not on windows 7.

[Dark Mantis]

I don't know for sure as I don't have access to one of those cards and I don't use the software but I wouldn't be suprised if it is a stupid quirk of the OC Guru software as I know with one of the motherboard software utilites all the LEDs light up just to look pretty.

[Hirsul]

Hi Joker,

Well I tell you my experience with GV-N470SO-13I.

You have to download the latest OC GURU from whatever you find it (I recommend you .tw site (ASIAN), first of all to get the latest updates).

Since the 1.13 version (now at 1.14) LED phases works fine with the latest NVIDIA drivers (260.99). I am, also, on Win7 64Bits. So I can tell you the latest OCGURU version works (also 1.13).

The only issue with OC GURU is that does not support multiple graphics cards. Also OC GURU have issues with mirroring graphics drivers (like logmein.com).

Resuming, update your OC GURU to activate/deactivate phase LEDs on the VGA (Looks like a LEDS are software implemented, non on the firmware)

Regards,


Eng. Jose Gausachs M.Sc.

[joker]

Hi hirsul. Thanks very much for the explanation! I have looked everywhere for some information on this. I will download that version of oc guru tonight. I'm not using sli so hopefully should be ok. I was hoping the power phase function was in the firmware so i could use msi afterburner instead. Thanks again.

[Wulfgar]

Wait so the green Leds are not supposed to stay on all the time ?

I thought they were some kind of visual indication that the card is getting enough power. I didn't install OC Guru and the Leds stay on all the time, is that a bad thing ?

The card is working fine though.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi
I don't have access to this card, or indeed any other GPUs but from what I can see the green LEDs mean there is nothing to worry about it is only if they go red that it means you are nearing the high end of the card's limit as far as OCing goes. Hope this helps put your mind at rest.