I thought I'd introduce the topic with a rather dramatic statement, I'm not actually positive that's the verdict, just my initial thought.

I installed everything and I'm getting a wierd problem, after a bit of tinkering I narrowed it down to the PSU and the graphics card. What led me to finally assume it was the graphics card was the fact that the problem is mirrored by someone else who found out it was their graphics card and the fact that the sytem works without the graphics card (or at least power gets to most of the system).

I have the standard 520 Watt psu that came with a raidmax. With the 8800 GTS in, I turn on the comp the psu fan turns on for a split second, thats it. Then all power to the mobo is lost. And I can hear a sound comming from the PSU. Kinda like the sound from the flash building up in a camera. But fading out for about 5 seconds, this is if I have the PCI-E power plugged in; if I don't have the power plugged in, then the motherboard's speaker makes a distinctly alerting noise, the system powers up (except for the graphics card).

The problem is stated by a guy in the post in the link below who quite promptly got the shop to replace his card as faulty after testing it.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/sh [...] 016&page=1

Conclusions I come to are mostly conjecture, I really have no justification for it.

# BFG 8800GTS 640MB (PCI Express)
# Raidmax X1 - Silver/White (with PSU)
# Asus P5B (Intel - 775)
# OCZ 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 Gold GX XTC (2X1GB CL5)
# Seagate 250GB S-ATA II
# Pioneer DVR-111D OEM - Silver
# Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz (LGA775)

What are the specs on your PSU ?

It could be the video card, is there another system you can try it in ?


ED: Is this card BFG or XFX ?

ED: Since you might be using a factory pre-overclocked Video Card the power requirements will be the performance difference squared.

eg: 1.25 (times the performance) ^ 2 = 1.5625 (times the power requirement).

i have seen before where if there is a short in the video card it will have this effect, but then again a short in the power supply or motherboard will have the same effect. Best way to help test is to try the video card in another system. If this is an XFX video card please start a support ticket at ww.xfxforce.com and PM me the ticket number.

XFX Support

I should be able to try it in my friend's computer by the end of the day. I'll make another reply when I find out.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret the numbers on my PSU, it was advertised as a 520W, and it seems that that's the peak wattage.

520 Watts Peak usually means 416 Watts sustainable, or less, could be as low as 312 Watts sustainable.

Chances are it is between 312 and 416 Watts sustainable though, so around: 364 watts sustainable.

I should be able to handle a 520 watt draw for 60 seconds, past 30 seconds though would be pushing it.

Well, as far as I know, when the card is idle the draw isn't very big, and the 'short' happens virtually instantly, so to the best of my understanding it shouldn't be be drawing enough power to stop it from even starting with that PSU, if I need it I'll buy a new PSU, but first I'd like the thing to start.

Did you get a chance to test it in your friends system?

XFX Support