Debian nvidia video problem

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 07:45:44AM -0500, Giles Orr wrote:
> This morning the computer came up chunks and blocks instead of a BIOS
> screen at power-up.
> 
> After I removed the second hard drive and both the dual head (but
> air-cooled) Nvidia cards, not only does the computer seem to be fine,
> but sound, which has been deceased for a couple weeks now, has
> returned.
> 
> My guess is that the Dell power supply ("Lite-on, 350w") is aging and
> was probably borderline for the stuff I'd put in the case.  Does that
> sound reasonable?  If so, I should buy a new power supply: what
> wattage would you recommend putting in there (two Nvidia cards, two
> hard drives, C2Q 2400MHz)?  What make?
> 
> Thanks for the help with X: it's probably fixed, but it'll be another
> couple days before I'm in a position to check.

Which kind of nvidia cards?  Their power use varies a lot after all.

The C2Q 2400 itself uses around 105W, add in another probably 20W for the
ram and other mainboard parts.  The power supply probably isn't as good
as it claims (most aren't, only a few brands are truly what they claim).

I use a 500W silverstone power supply for a box with the C2Q 2400,
one nvidia 8600GT and 4 1TB WD Caviar Black drives.  No problem there.

I put a 610W in a machine with a Core i7 920 and one nvidia 275GTX.

Remember power supplies are usually most efficient at around 50 to 60%
load, so try to choose based on that (so if you machine will mostly idle,
then aim to have 50% load be about idle power, while if you run it all
out a lot, aim to have 60% load match full load on the machine).  I would
not want the machine maxed out to exceed about 80% load on the power
supply, just to be sure it is stable.  And that is assuming a proper
quality power supply.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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