GV-N570SO-13I on board power phases green led logic

[Uber05]

Hi there,

I'm an happy owner of a GTX570 SO (GV-N570SO-13I). Everything works just fine in my system. I have a question thou. I went thru a review of the card done by Hexus.net in which the author says:"12 LEDs indicate the number of power phases active for the GPU and VRMs. Idle in Windows and two are lit, while load a game and the full complement of green LEDs is visible if you peer into the chassis. A further two power phases, without corresponding LEDs, are reserved for the memory" As my case is still opened I noticed that I have all 12 leds always lit, in idle ( windows 7 64bit desktop ) as well as during Metro 2033 gaming with full high settings. The game runs smoothly and the power consumption read from the plug shifts from 100 watts on idle to 280 watts during Metro 2033 gaming. So I'm pretty sure the card is working well. I also tried to activate the epu power saving switch on my mobo and change bios settings to auto power saving but no changes at all. So my question is: is there something wrong with my leds? Is there something I should install to have the leds correctly indicating the number of power phases currently active (i.e. Oc Guru)? Or maybe Hexus.net is not telling how the leds really work?

Thank you in advance for any suggestion to feed my curiosity!

Manuèl

Asus P8P67 Deluxe, Core i5 2500K, Corsair vengeance 2x4Gb 1600, WD Caviar Black, NZXT Phantom white, Corsair AX850, Gigabyte GV-N570SO-13I

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

I don't have one of the cards to be able to test and see what happens exactly but as long as everything is running ok I wouldn't worry. These cards seem to soon let you know when they are unhappy and wont run smoothly then so I doubt that you have a problem.

[Uber05]

Hi DM,
thanx alot for your answer, indeed the card works pretty well, and I'm happy for that.

I was just curious about that led behaviour, wondering if someone else, owner of a superoverclocked model, could satisfy my curiosity by describing his leds behavioor too. Maybe in OC Guru there is a setting for power saving which could affect the graphic card voltage and I didn't find it.

Thanx again. I'll try to wait and see if a SOC model owner could be so kind to have a look into the case to check those leds at idle in windows 7 desktop...

[ssi91]

I have the same card, when idle all the LEDs are lit unless you install and have OC Guru running. If it is, then one LED will be lit at idle, with more lighting up as the load increases.

I don’t know if the power draw is actually less with OC Guru as I do not have a tester. OC Guru does have a green mode and idles at 50 MHz GPU clock, 0.94 Volts and 0.81 Amps, if its readings are correct.

I would like to know if the draw is less as I have no plans to OC the card any higher than its factory settings and could uninstall OC Guru.

[Uber05]

Hi ssi91,
thank you, now I know the reason for my leds being lit all time! I suspect the power consumption is the same with OC Guru installed and without. My system is idling @ 98 watts in windows 7 desktop, which is pretty low for my specs ( maybe the PSU, which has an excellent efficiency, is also responsible for that )  but when i play Battlefield Bad Company 2 at 1980x1080 with full max settings the power consumption rises to 298 watts more or less. I could try to install oc guru and activate the energy saving feature you are talking about to check if the idle power consumption lowers. I'll try in the next days to answer to your curiosity.