Hi All, not having much look with PC's at the moment.
So last night I was playing some games, (Warthunder nothing to demanding) and my display just cuts out. After further inspection my graphics card (Sapphires nitro RX480 4GB) had no lights on and the fans were off, as far as I am aware it does light up when powered on under normal conditions, everything else on the machine comes on such as the case fans and I can hear the drives working however nothing happens on the card.
Any advice on trouble shooting this one tonight? Im at work at the moment so I cant look however I am going to try my old card tonight and see if that works, whats the likelihood of the PCI-E slot dying or should the card power on through the 8 pin connector regardless of this?
Yeah Its a 500 W CX from corsair using a genuine 8 pin connector that come with the unit. My old card was a low powered one (HD 7770), I had no issues when initially stress testing my new card with GPU benchmarks and games last week, however the PSU is about 3 years old now so its a possibility
500 is a bit of a stretch. The Nitro has a max power of 225W or sth i think(the 8 gb. The 4 might have less). It is max power so even with a too weak supply it will not have issues all the time. Only when you have spikes. It does not leave much of a space for the rest of the components. You can try and borrow from someone a more powerful supply and check if that was the case.
You may have seen a power spike from the card, pretty common the card is just working at a higher load briefly. I would have said a 500w was gambling but depends on what else is in the system. Even if the PSU is not the issue I recommend going to a 750w to improve your power bills, you don't want your PSU running near to max all the time!
Also, if the PSU can't supply enough and did cut power to the card that could have cause some serious damage, can't be certain as I'm not an expert.
Hmmm its possible, I'll have to try and borrow a friends rig with a 1250w power supply in it.
The thing that confuses me is that the GPU want under much load, at the time, as it was sitting on the menu screen, the card was set at its default settings as well
One thing to try is to set the GPU clock to a fixed speed with a manual voltage which may help to stop power spikes. Plenty of guides for doing that on the net. That's if you can get it to boot of course.
You could very well be right, I was just making a suggestion. I can tell you when I ran 2 650ti boosts in SLI they would occasionally spike on google. Don't know why, they just did.
Is there any reliable utility you know of for measuring power consumption? I'm considering a wattage meter for the wall outlet however I will be unable to regularly view it due to its position from my desk.
I'll post back when I have tested the card tonight, I will invest in a new power supply to be safe as part of a system upgrade anyway
If you know how to solder adding more capacitors to the +12 rail before would keep the power spikes in check. Nitro has a none standard PCB, so it doesn't really pull power through the pci-e slot.
could you list all the specs, CPU and so on of your PC? does the 480 boot up at all?
If your RX 480 doesn't light up or post, test another GPU. If that one doesn't either, something is wrong with either your powersupply or your motherboard.
If only the RX 480 doesn't behave like it should, RMA it.
Your system should be able to run of a 500w supply without a problem.
I used the EVGA software monitor, I couldn't tell what power was being used, it just showed me how the cards were being used (a bit like task manager) so I could tell when they were drawing maximum power.
Hey Pull the card out (safely) and check the contacts of the card on both sides, for discoloration of any of the contact tongs. I would also suggest checking the concerned rail of the psu. (the one used for graphics and the 8 pin going to mobo. (IMO) You might find the problem ! Warning = if you have damaged or tainted contacts, I would be VERY careful before trying another card !
So I managed to test the card in a friend's pc....
Lights and fans came on, alas no display....It's dead, confirmed with a known working HDMI
Old card didn't work in my PC but did in my friends, something has gone very wrong. Couldn't see any signs of shorting on the PCIE slot or cable on the power supply. And no smell either..... I couldn't test the power supply on my friends machine as its quite an expensive rig and it's not worth the risk.
I'm going to rma the card this week, I'll test the other components tomorrow, my main concern are my drives now which could be damaged, what is the likelihood of them being damaged? Or could the GPU have just nuked the motherboard and that's that?
Most probably, not damaged ! they get the basic voltages, and since the basic were on, being fans and few leds, they should be OK. (no smoke came out ?) and unit just shut down = some protection came about, or some voltages just were not there ! Just do not fuck ( could not find a better term) around with them ! test them in a known working environment !