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Computer problems, need help.
I have a computer that is over heating when I start playing swtor, and this has been the first mmo that has done this. I can play other mmo's and wont have this problem.
Here are my specs,
intel dual core processor 2.7ghz
4gb ram
gtx nividia 460 1gb
450w power supply
When it overheats (which is what im guessing is happening) the monitor shuts off, this happens 10-15mins into playing swtor.
If someone could give me an educated opinion on what they think is happening i would greatly appreciate it. Also it is my friends computor and I am doing this for him to try and figure this out, I am thinking maybe needs a bigger power supply as the graphics card minimum was a 450w ps.
Thanks,
Audrik
Comments
What power supply do you have, and what case? 450 W isn't a power supply any more than 1 GB is a video card. Give the exact brand name and model. Open up the case and read the label if you have to.
Thanks for the quick response, sorry didnt know what details to give. My friend is going to text it to me as soon as he gets home. (he went to best buy to get a power supply, but ended up not getting one yet).
Uh oh. Picking up a power supply at random from Best Buy might just mean replacing one piece of junk power supply with another. 450 W is plenty of power for that system if it's a good 450 W power supply. The problem is quality, not wattage.
If the power supply is the problem, then here's a decent deal on a fairly good quality power supply that is appropriate to your system:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094
If you want to go to Best Buy and grab something off the shelf, then you'd better have someone who knows quite a bit about power supplies with you or you could end up with junk.
Why would your monitor shut off if your PSU is overheating. Neither are connected, and are powered separately...
Rather is your screen going blank or flickering, or are you crashing to desktop...etc If thats the case, then yeah your PSU may have gone bad and is overheating. And thus your GPU is not getting the equired power and is shutting down. Also, one of the most common problem of an PSU overheating is the fan going out, so open your case and check to see if the fan is spinning, unless you have one with the fan facing out the rear of the case.
Also of note, make sure you manually adjust the fan speed of your GPU when playing graphically intensive games, otherwise your GPU will overheat and shutdown, or could even burn itself out. {this could also be your issue instead of the PSU} The 460 doesn't have an overheat prevention built-in either like the 500 series does.
And as Quizzical asked, what is the PSU model?
If the PSU is bad and overheating or whatever...wouldn't the lack of power to the GPU cause signal loss and shut off the Monitor. It happened to mine before I replaced the PSU. Screen said no signal and then the monitor shut off. It was still getting power as indicated by the yellow light but the screen was off . I think that's what the OP means.
rocketfish powersupply model rf-50wps2
he say's he cant see anything on the video card
I am assuming that you've opened the side of the chassis and actually looked at the fans to make sure they are operating properly.
You power supply can fail and cause problems with displaying the video because the video card no longer has enough power to properly send the information to the monitor.
You can also have Vsync problems causing your monitor to shut off because the video actually goes out of range when in the game. I've heard people say they've had to turn off Vsync > exit options > then go back in and turn them on again.
If you're planning on buying a new PSU, I highly recommend adding 30% to the required wattage as a minimum. So if you're requirements say you need 400W, buy a 550W PSU. Quizzical will give you suggestions as to which he'd recommend you should buy and I would say you can trust his judgement. I myself buy thermaltake or Antec but there are other quality PSU's available that may have a nicer pricetag.
Edited to remove the potential recommendation that just any idiot should put hands inside a computer. Not saying the OP is an idiot, but I can just about guarantee that there will be an idiot reading this thread eventually.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
He said the monitor flickered and went blank...
Well overheating can be caused by various different things. Primarily due to an extensive amount of dust collection inside of the case itself. How often do you spray it out with a can of compressed air? How often do you check your internal components of your computer by removing the side panel, assuming your computer is a tower.
There are many reasons why a computer might malfunction, noticing the type of processor you have it may indicate an older model or you might be using a model that uses older versions of Capaciters. Check to see if any of the thick looking components on your mother board that may be black or brown have a domed or broken top, if you have seen any that appear to have this issue then you may need to replace your motherboard. *This is a common issue when it comes to an overheating computer* This can also affect your graphics card that primarily uses a solid state capaciter instead of a liquid electrolyte like your motherboard you have. Although some graphics cards also have these older styled caps.
Secondly, ensure that you have really good air flow through the case itself. Ensure there is at least one fan blowing air inside of your case and one fan pulling air from it. Your best bet is to have a higher up fan blowing out and a lower fan blowing in giving you fresh cold air and exhausting the hot air properly. Your PSU can cause issues, however unless you are over-powering your graphics card or motherboard it will not cause your computer to produce any excess power unless it itself is overheating.
There are dozens of reasons why computers may malfunction as they do, my first reaction to your issue is that your graphics card isn't being cooled properly and this is causing your computer to crash when loading a graphics intensive program such as a video game. If it was your PSU, you would notice issues whether you are playing SWTOR or not. Is this an isolated incident with just that game or does this happen elsewhere as well. If it's a SWTOR isolated issue, try upgrading your chipset as well as your graphics drivers to the latest version.
Thank you and have a great day
Have you tried changing drivers? Some of Nvidias recent drivers are nototious for TDR's (timeout detection and recovery), the screen will go black when this happens and can power off.
the 275 drivers were the last that didn't do it although the latest ones are fine for me as long as i turn off GPU acceleration on Firefox.
This, more or less.
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From the specs, it's not immediately obvious that the power supply is the problem. Still, it's a Huntkey, and from that alone, it's very plausible that the power supply is the problem. If it isn't causing this particular problem, then it could easily cause some other in the future. That's not something you want to risk. I'd replace it just on general principle.
I'd also like to know what case you've got. You may also want to check to make sure the fans work. You can check on fans by a simple visual inspection; either they're spinning or they aren't.
I'm kind of curious how people automatically assume that it's a PSU issue. There is no indication that he mentioned power outages, POST issues, booting issues or anything else. PSU problems I agree are common, but it would be wiser for people to find the actual issue instead of assuming. Don't make people waste money on something that is not broken. He indicated this happens when he plays one game as an isolated event in his post, a PSU failure would not be an isolated event with a game it would cause significantly more issues then that.
Btw when a graphics card overheats, it causes the windows driver to fail. Often causing a monitor to flicker, or crash to a lower resolution before restarting the device and restoring it's previous video state. Driver updates often fix these kind of problems.
Maybe the graphics card uses more power when it's working hard.
Some games push a video card harder than others.
A cheap junk power supply is always a problem. The only question is whether it's the only problem.
Naturally it would, but once again... This is an isolated incident with SWTOR, as he stated he has played other MMO's without issues. One MMO won't request more resources then another from a GPU it will always request as much as possible and that card will ALWAYS request the same amount of power from the PSU unless it has a SANDY bridge style processor which doesn't exist for a graphic's card. (((assuming they have the same graphics demand as most do))) Of course a stronger PSU is always recommended, like when I buy my super clocked 560ti fermi card from EVGA it asks for 500 but I'm buying 850W for any future upgrades as well. i7's take almost 100W for themselves so it doesn't leave much room. I'm not saying the PSU isn't the issue, I am just saying from what I'm seeing it may just be a simple driver issue, or a hardware issue.
I'd be interested in seeing proof that it's an overheating issue, personally. Download a program like Realtemp, or HWMonitor, or GPU-Z, and see what kind of temperatures the card hits over time.
Newer games almost always benefit from new drivers, especially those of the AAA variety, so I'd check that you're running fairly recent drivers as well.
Althought I will admit, RocketFlash isn't a name I like seeing inside anyone's computer.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
I complertely agree with you. You get what you pay for and you shouldn't get anything other then Corsair or Antec in most cases. Although there are a few great brands, those two are ones that I have had very little issue with. They cost more but a dying PSU can cost me my whole system and I'm not willing to risk a $6,000 investment for nothing. Yes I know most don't spend over $1,000 but still, not wise to risk that much money to save $40 or even $60.
Retail computer manufacturers will buy the cheapest piece of equipment they can get away with especially if it's something most people almost completely ignore. When is the last time you heard of Dell or HP touting how good their PSUs are?
Power supplys are one of the most often replaced field replaceable units(FRU). A bad PSU can cause a lot of problems including the failure of almost everything else in a computer.
Of course, but PSU issues are not isolated to an issue with one game. As he stated he plays other MMOs and games on his computer without any issue at all. This is isolated, and PSU issues are never isolated to software problems. Of course that PSU should be replaced at his earliest convinience but it probably will not fix his issue.
It's not hard to understand how a power supply could only have the voltage regulation or ripple get out of hand when you pull a lot of wattage from it. Even the really awful power supplies usually manage to run everything in spec at 1/4 load. It's only when you pull a lot of wattage from them that things go horribly awry.
Maybe SWTOR simply pulls more wattage from his power supply than any other game he's played.
I highly doubt that, as most graphics cards hardly utilize more then 200W with a state of the art card and I am quite certain that playing his other MMO's on max settings won't be much different then playing SWTOR. Star wars graphics requirements aren't that high to begin with, I honestly believe this is merely a driver issue. As another poster has stated, he should try running intensive benchmarks such as futuremark and see if he experiences the same problem.
If everything puts exactly the same load on all hardware, then why do stress test programs exist? Since, as you say, they can't possibly use any more power than a typical game. Why have Intel and AMD put power-monitoring features into their hardware, to keep track of how much power programs are actually using and adjust clock speeds accordingly, if it never varies from one program to another? And could you please explain the concept of a power virus?
The issue sounds like your grafiks card is overheating. What you want to do, is go to google.com and type in "evga precision". This porgram allows you to adjust the fan speed on your gcard . Also it shows the exact temperature of your Gcard. If the temperature is above 75-80 you have found your problem. I set my fan to around 70-80% depending how hot it is.
Make sure though it is still set on auto.
Intel and AMD don't make GPU's for one... For two, you obviously didn't read my original post about the many factors to a computer overheating. The issue was overheating...
Yes a processor will throttle the amount of speed it uses based on the load it has, but it's voltage and the card's max wattage usage is quite static unless it has an architecture that enables voltage and wattage throttling to save power. Ex. Sandy Bridge.
When you are running a video game, regardless of how intense the GPU itself will always be running at it's max clock speed which will pull the full amount of wattage from the PSU. Now that's not saying that the processor itself will be running at 100% but it's clock speeds will be as a GPU will only clock down itself if it is not being used. Remember a system will allocate as much resources as possible to any software that is running. Now it's not uncommon for new games to cause overheating issues on a card, as wow had at one point been unplayable by people with a defective driver Nvidia released long ago. Playing wow would almost fry your graphic card, because of that driver alone.
I really do not wish to constantly have a stupid debate, but what I do want is the OP to try finding the specific problem by running benchmarks and figuring out what is causing the issues or bring it into a certified professional to do it for them.
UM, BOTH Intel and AMD make video cards. Intel is mostly integrated but they do make video cards. AMD is the maker of Radeon cards... the second most used card on the planet...