GeForce FX5900 "low power" warning

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:05 pm

Every so often I've been getting a "low power" warning for my FX5900 card, usually on the desktop. The message is something on the order of "nVidia control panel has determined that your graphics card is not receiving enough power from the power supply. The nVidia graphics options have been scaled back to accommodate this low power setting. Etc."

The weird things are that a) I never see any difference in graphics rendering, b) it more often than not happens while I'm just surfing or the computer is idle than while I'm gaming (and ostensibly the card is drawing more power), and c) I have a hard time believing that a 400W power supply is not adequate, considering that my PC is not exactly jampacked with components. In addition to the video card I have a sound card, NIC, and a modem. Unless the motherboard and CPU is sucking off that much power, or these FX5900 cards are THAT much of a hog.

Has anyone else ever seen these power warnings? Do I really need to invest in another power supply (the one I have is a nice Enermax 400W)?

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:18 pm

I had this issue with my older rig. I never did figure it out but it made me paranoid enough to not use my nice (then) new card untill i got my new rig 2 months later.

What are your system specs?

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 5:40 pm

Epox 8KTA3-Pro mobo with an Athlon XP 2000+
896 MB SDRAM
2 7200 RPM IDE HDDs (20GB and 60GB)
BFG GeForce FX5900OC
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card
NIC
internal modem
400W Enermax power supply

SuperHiro · Post by **SuperHiro** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 6:58 pm

I had this problem. Exact problem actually.

IT turns out that the card needed a plug from the PS. You know those power cable things that run from the PS to the CD-rom and the hard drive, etc.? Yeah, I used the switcher that came with the card, and stuck in on my hard drive's plug, putting one end in the hard drive and the other end into the graphics card. No problems after that.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 7:13 pm

SuperHiro wrote:IT turns out that the card needed a plug from the PS.

I know, and it is plugged in. That's why it's weird that I'm still getting these power errors. I suppose I could try a different lead and see if that helps. Except that these errors only occur once in awhile.

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:09 pm

Weird. That 400 watt PS should be more than plenty...
If a different lead doesn't work, I'd see about maybe exchanging the card. Somewhere along the line, whether it's your lead or somewhere on the card, the power isn't getting there.

Is this a new card, or have you been running this system just like it is for a while now and just now getting problems?

gorham09 · Post by **gorham09** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:23 pm

You may need to set things up so that your card has its own exclusive power lead. In other words trace one of the lines out from the power supply and unplug everything from it. No hard drives, fans, cd-roms, floppy drives, etc. The only molex connector used on that particular line should be the one connecting to your card. You can hook everything else up to the other lines out from your power supply. See if this helps.