Weird power issue

[Bushwacker]

   Yes, my OCZ 700W power supply just crapped out last week.  No "POP", it was more like the juice was just turned off.  Pulled it and put in old Thermaltake from Heywood's red box that has been at my house, plus the Thermaltake Power Express 250w GPU power supply and I was back up running with one video card instead of SLI.  RMAing my old PS.  Normally they really stink of that chemical smell when a PS fries, but this one barely smells.  I may have been drawing too much juice with two GPU's and all the junk in my case so I am going to look for a larger PS next month.

[Goat]

Sounds like you already got it figured out but just wanted to give you some food for thought.  When I upgraded to Windows 7 I had the same issue of random BSoD's. Weeks later after much research I found out that it was a driver for my Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard causing the issue. Got a new driver from someone in the Asus forums and haven't had an issue since.

[zrigged]

Well, in a strange twist to the story, I was able to run my PC without BSODs at full overclocks (minus the gpus--I put them at stock while testing) and I've run now for four days with ~4.09GHz on the cpu without one single issue, including multiple gaming sessions and Sandra tests.

However, today the PSU is officially flatlined. I'm running up to MicroCenter for another one while this is RMA'd, as I can still use the return for another project box.

C'est la vie. When it was running smooth after the issues, I should have guessed trouble was afoot. I can basically guarantee that the failures at overclock were due to voltage issues (BSODs) and for whatever reason it decided to work the last four days, that point is officially moot! 

So, chalk this one up to a slowly dieing power supply. No pop, no zangs, no sparks. Just turned it off this morning and that was the last time it would fire up. I even tested in another PC (again) just for good measure, but nadda. I can't even get a reading from the 24-pin.   

She's dead on the slab!!! However, considering this is the first significant hardware failure in what...three years or so? That ain't too shabby for a massively overclocked rig.

I may get crazy and pick up one of the last 775 quad cores while I'm up there, too. Probably just a Q8300 (I just don't see sense in spending the extra $20 on the Q9300 -- 4mb L2 vs 6mb L2) since neither really overclocks well. These have locked multipliers, so I can only bump it up with FSB...    Oh well. Factually, I'm hoping to be able to build either a full-blown i7 unit or maybe even get crazy with an AMD rig sometime toward the end of the year, or early next year. When and if I do (more to the point, if I can afford to) it will be simplistic--i7 with liquid, a single GPU (likely Fermi), and a shyte load of RAM, topped off with two hdd's....and that's it! No more 80lbs nut busters, thank you, though this will make a nice server platform and backup gaming rig.

[zrigged]

OK, so I picked up a "green" Coolmax 950W SLi power supply. So far so good. It's really quiet, and the modular form is really quite good. I remember the "old days" when Coolmax was teh suck, but this model is actually very well rated. Still will RMA the OCZ though, as I need another one for an ongoing project that may or may not ever be finished. 

I also picked up a Q8300. Since skt775 quad cores are becoming increasingly difficult to find, I decided to bite the bullet, and MicroCenter was offering them up for $119, which is a steal even compared to the big online retailers. The Q9300 was $20 more, but they're both the same clock speed, but the 9300 has 6mb of L2 instead of the 4mb in the 8300. Not worth the extra dough.

What's good about this processor? Multi-tasking, of course. The subjective analysis is that the system boots as fast as with the E8400 overclocked to 4+GHz, and that's at the stock 2.5GHz. What's bad? NO UNLOCKED MULTIPLIER!!! Now, I already knew this, so it wasn't a surprise. However, a quick bump on the FSB got me to 3.4 pretty quickly, although (heh heh) that was an awful lot of FSB for even the 780i to handle. Lots of heat. So I set it at 1600MHz and it's running like a champ, which puts it at exactly 3GHz. Fast enough, anyway. I wish the multiplier wasn't an issue, but 2.5GHz is a tad on the wheezy side. At 3? No issues.

BC2 definitely plays better now, though that's not the primary reason for picking it up. I had plans on using a Pentium D 945 (which is  a respectable little chip still) in a backup rig, but the E8400 is really a trump card, so that's where the old cpu went.

Next up will be graphics. I want to upgrade, but I'm not sure how much I want to spend, and I'm not sure if I really care about DX11 at the moment. I'm honestly debating dual 260GTX's or a single GTX460. Now, the 260 and 460 are pretty much same-same, but with DX11 on the 4xx series, but the price difference is about $125. Honestly, though, I'm considering picking one up now (eVGA) and getting another down the road.

However, for nearly the same price of one 460 I could have dual 260 power, which, truthfully, seems like a pretty kick-ass combo. DX11? Meh...Maybe when prices are significantly lower a 480 or ATI 58xx would be worth it, but frankly, I'm about the FPS at the moment.

w00t. Upgrades...been a while.

[/<Demon]

If your lookin for 2 gtx260s get the XFX Black Edition - Comes with a lifetime warranty that DOES cover frying it by OCing.

[zrigged]

Thanks for the heads-up. If I get two for SLi, though, I think that they'll be fine stock for quite some time. However, eVGA has RMA'd cards for me that had been overclocked, so...But I'll look for the Black Edition. Thanks! 

If I only get one, I am looking at a single 460.

Oh, another possibility is 3-way 250GTS 1GB. This is pretty much a fantastic scenario now that 3-way (heh heh...I said, "3-way") is finally coming into its own.

[Bushwacker]

Got my OCZ replacement PS last week and reinstalled to my rig.  Decided I may have been overdrawing the PS's capabilities with two 260 GTX's and all the drives and lights and fans so I put in a 250W Thermaltake VGA power supply I had laying around.  Now I am good for 950W of gaming greatness.

[zrigged]

Heh, yeah, gots to have the volts! How long did the OCZ RMA take? I sent mine in a couple weeks ago.

[Bushwacker]

Took about two weeks from time I shipped mine out.     

[Billybob]

Wow, that's quick! Took Antec 6 to 8 Weeks to fix mine and send it back.

[Bushwacker]

    They did not repair old one,  they just shipped out a brand new one about a day after they got mine.

[Billybob]

That's what they did with mine, but it still took 6 to 8 weeks to do... They had to wait for the glue to dry on the box or something

[zrigged]

Well, looks like UPS dropped the ball on my package--which is why it isn't there yet!!! 

Should be there Wednesday, though.

[zrigged]

Arrived on Wednesday, replaced and shipped today. Wow! I guess there was little question, eh? lol...