Help for Noob

[Roan Skout]

I've just upgraded my graphic's card from a 64Mb to a Asus V9520 Magic-T GeForce FX 5200. I didn’t see a lot of difference to be honest. Then I found this in the power settings..........

Problem Report

The NVIDIA system Sentinel is reporting that the NVIDIA powered
graphic's card is not receiving sufficient power.

To protect your hardware from potential damage or causing a
potential system lockup, the graphics processor has lowered its
performance to a level that allows continued safe operations.

To remedy the problem, ensure that your NVIDIA graphics card in your system has the supplemental power connector attached. This connection is required and your system may be damaged if it is not in place. Please refer to your owner’s manual for complete inspection instructions. Also, the power supply in your computer must be able to supply ample power, to power all of the attached peripherals in addition to this extra connection.

I went out & updated my power supply to 550W & I'm still having the problem. I don’t understand what "supplemental power connector" is? There are no ports on the card itself for a cable, & none supplied...

Maybe my motherboard won’t support the card?

Soltex with 1300 AMD processor
512Mb RAM

Hope you can help this noob out

Thanx

What motherboard is it?

I'm not sure, but maybe that card needs extra power to the AGP rail. Does your mobo have a smaller 4-pin connector for the extra 4-pin plug from the PSU?

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

Yeah, tell us what model soltek you have, that'll go a long way to getting this straightened out.

If his board is 4x and the card is 8x, well obviously the card is going to run at 4x.....will he still need the extra power connector then?

Dont they make adapter for those 4 pin connectors to be able to work with the regular molex connectors on power supplies?

JP

[John Prophet]

I have seen things like this posted for other video cards,,,,

"The Radeon 9800 Pro must be connected to the computer power supply to meet its performance and high-speed memory requirements.

In order to supply the ATI Graphics Accelerator card with the necessary power, we have included the Power Extension Cable.

Use the Power Extension Cable to connect the Radeon 9800Pro to the computer hard Drive power connector.

1. Remove the power cable from the hard drive.
2. Connect the 4-pin connector of the Power Extension Cable to the Radeon 9800 Pro power connector.
3. Connect the Power Extension Cable to the power supply connector.
4. Connect the Power Extension Cable to the Hard Drive connector."


So from the looks of that, some of the video cards come with an extension cable to go from the card straight to a power supply connector so that they get more juice that way.

Yours didnt come with any kind of extra cable like that? I looked at a review of the Asus card but I didnt see any such extension cable mentioned.

JP

[Eladijaz]

Hi,
The supplemental connector would be a connector on the card to which you connect either a molex or FDD power cable. I doubt that your card has one as the 5200 series, as far as I know, don't.
It sounds like a driver issue ... have you tried updating to the latest reference drivers from nvidia?
Regards,
Elad.

[Roan Skout]

Hey guys

Thanx for your quick responses.

Being a noob I threw away the packaging for my motherboard right after I received the computer 4yrs ago. All I can make out is that its a Soltex SL-75KAV, but while looking for the type of board I noticed that the AGP is 4X. After a little research I found this site: http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html Now it doesn’t mean to much to me, but I believe its what John said, so thanx John.

Will the card & motherboard run ok until I upgrade, or will I run the chance of damaging one or both?

Maybe its time for that upgrade after all

[phil_monk]

First Hi and Welcome

Second you can still use both but i wouldn't recommend it as it could become unstable just like anything else if it hasn't got enough power it will become unstable. but reading the post it gave you it sounds like it might be ok.

i would buy a 8X board you can pick them up for next to nothing so it would be worth it as you should notice a huge difference.

hope this helps and happy gaming.

[John Prophet]

Well all 8x cards are supposed to be backwardly compatible with 4x...so I guess you would be alright.

The "supplemental connector" would have come with the video card not the motherboard.

What drivers did you use to install the card? Have you tried the latest drivers? Cuz maybe youre getting that message out of error somehow? Not sure.

JP

[Eladijaz]

Ahem.

[Roan Skout]

I'm not ignoring you Eladijaz

I used the driver disk that came with the card & updated it from the nVidia site. So they are up to date. There wasn’t a "supplemental connector" supplied, or a port to house one on the card.

Phil

I don’t think I’m up to installing a motherboard myself, so I’d have to let a technician charge me for his services. So if I’m paying, I might as well go the whole hog & update the processor too.

Thanx