Power supply

[bytheway_r]

Yeah. There may be alternatives, maybe even something better but this PSU has been thoroughly tested, is rock solid and has good 5-year warranty. Which basically means that you'll be covered for the entire duration you'll use this PSU as it'd be prudent to replace it after 5 years anyway.

[cookiebun]

Thank all for the good advice we will go for the 650w Corsair and if it doesn't work i will tell her to blame all of you.   
                                                                                regards.

[bytheway_r]

Nah, it'd be Corsair's fault then as it'd be a dead PSU so you'd have to RMA it straight away

[cookiebun]

bytheway_r did you test the 4870x2 with the Corsair 650w PSU

[bytheway_r]

I would... if the other party didn't send it to a different address. Imagine my surprise when the courier called my cell at 10AM and I learned that my package is over 350km from me.

Hopefully I'll get my hands on it tomorrow .

[autotech]

The 650 coarsair will handle it fine i have 3 computers in total and i have a 750 drawing crossfired 4870 and the 650 is doing the quad core 3.4 with a 4870 and 8 gigs of ram in a haf 922 case. Running it for a year and a half with no troubles at all thru the upgrades i have done to it.

[bytheway_r]

Can't really add anything productive as the card I got isn't working which isn't all that surprising. Anyway, as everyone said, 650W will be more than enough to run your system.

Regarding my 4870x2 - the card's behaving like normal as far as I can tell but it restarts system once and then it boots without display. When starting up:

1. Fan starts and works with different speeds during steps 1-4.
2. Overheat diode lights up for a moment.
3. Power diodes ( 8 and 6 pin ) light up for a moment.
4. Overheat diode blinks 2-3 times.
5. System restarts after ~2-3 seconds.
6. Repeat 1-4.
7. System boots ( post beep ) and seems to work without display.
8. After steps 1-4 fan keeps working at some low RPM speed ( silent ).

When I cleared CMOS POST failure window appeared on the screen asking to choose one of previous bios configs. There were 2 or 3 green, vertical stripes on the screen ( from top to bottom ). Other than this I couldn't get the card to display anything.

When I disconnected the power cables fan worked at high RPM and both power diodes lit up and stayed ( which is normal behaviour as far as I know ).

I don't know if it's possible to run it with another card as main? I tried sticking in both this and my 4870 512MB and it didn't work, no display.

Any ideas?

[Dark Mantis]

I don't know if it's possible to run it with another card as main? I tried sticking in both this and my 4870 512MB and it didn't work, no display.

I don't think that the 650W PSU would be enough to power both those GPUs at once so that doesn't really help a lot.


Have you checked to make sure that the power cables to the GPU are the correct way round. There was a member the other day who had the connector wired up incorrectly as far as we could tell.

[bytheway_r]

It'd be if it had to. I have some parts meant for a 2nd PC around and there's that 500W OCZ PSU in there. I suppose I'd need the crossfire bridge for it, though?

Have you checked to make sure that the power cables to the GPU are the correct way round. There was a member the other day who had the connector wired up incorrectly as far as we could tell.

I don't really see how it'd matter with these power cables? I mean, on this PSU there are 2 PCI-E power cables, both 6+2 pin.

[Dark Mantis]

We are still looking into the cable problem but the colours didn't match what they should have as far as we could tell.

Do your graphics cards only use one connector each?

[bytheway_r]

4870 512MB uses 2x 6 pin and 4870x2 uses 8 pin and 6 pin. That's why I wouldn't even try with a single PSU as I don't have enough connectors .

[Dark Mantis]

It would be quite possible to set one up as slave to the main one used for powering the system and just run the extra GPU off it for trial purposes.

[bytheway_r]

Yeah but that'll take a while . Just ordered a crossfire bridge as I don't have one. Should get it next week.

[Dark Mantis]

It should be possible to run them both as two standalone cards on the one system with a monitor connected to each.

[bytheway_r]

Don't have a 2nd monitor . I think I'll wait for that crossfire bridge. It's not like I'm in a hurry atm.

You know, it's crazy what kind of info there is on the net. People seem to have the weirdest problems with their hardware and the solutions are even more bizzare .