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Must read: tricky situations with PSU`s and power sockets terminals

a100
Level 8
Hey guys,

So I got my Dell 330W the other day, didnt have much time to game so last night after quite some time I fired up the rig. Said to myself "hey lets Firestrike it for a bit :)" I did that and just 10 secs after the test started, GTX980Ti went offline !! so weird. I though maybe it was a sudden power outage or something so I started it again, same thing happened and GPU started counting starts lol. Something caught my eye, it was actually the Dell 330W PSU which was going down and powering off each time, in fact it was going to safe mode.

So it got me thinking: It was virtually impossible that PSU was defective,I was sure of that. GTX also was healthy and fine. So only one other possible scenario: PSU is not getting enough juice.

Look at the Power socket Terminal I was using:

54331

This is a 3 socket power terminal Into which I plug my 23" BenQ Monitor, 180W G20 PSU and 330W GPU PSU. so basically I`m asking about 600W max from that Power terminal given that the parts are overclocked and stuff.

On the other hand, the Dell 330w psu had a weird 3 dent male sockets for which I had no proper female sockets to match.

54332

So I went to a store and bought that conversion for it. didnt like it from the start, cheap stuff.

So all above said, I though maybe I should give this 330W PSU a better power flow. So I used the Power socket Terminal which I use for my Samsung Home Theater system which includes a 4k 78" TV, Samsung Seramic sorround system and a big Subwoofer. I though this is what I want to be sure.

54333

With this, system booted issue free and I ran 3 firestrike tests back to back .Each time I got my usual score of 15090. Conclusion: it was a weak power socket terminal not being able to feed the 330W PSU the power it needed.

Take a look at the wire comparison between the former and latter power sockets terminals:

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All tested and verified by me and I though maybe you should know this too.

Happy ROG`ing 🙂
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8 REPLIES 8

dsagent
Level 7
I need to buy something like that. I live in a old nyc apartment were the sockets are not that great. Might as well buy a UPS too.

Are they sold separately ?

a100
Level 8
By "I need to buy something like that" you mean a Power Sockets Terminal? yeah any electric store should have that kinda thing.

UPS ? hmm They are not that cheap and since you arent running a server I suggest you dont waste money on that.

Whats your rig?

Korth
Level 14
Reference GTX980Ti are rated for 250W and NVidia recommends a 600W+ PSU. A 330W PSU might barely run the card (along with the rest of the system) but I seriously doubt it could sustain peak power requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if your PSU keeps shutting down when a failsafe overpower protection circuit kicks in, it takes about 10-15 seconds of overheat before a slow-blow breaker kicks in.

I think a proper PSU would cost you less than a UPS and an assortment of weird power adapters. I suspect Dell used a nonstandard power terminal precisely because they didn't want consumers to easily plug things into standard wall receptacles.

You probably don't really *need* a UPS. But it breaks my heart every time I hear people running expensive hardware without one. You aren't running a server but that's no justification for gambling that dirty electrical power won't wreck your system, wear down your expensive GPU card, or corrupt your SSD flash.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

a100
Level 8
Hey Korth, probably you know better than me that 600W recommended PSU is the minimum for "the whole rig" The 330W PSU that I and many other people are using is a separate PSU plugged into the GPU alone so its more than enough for GTX980Ti.

a100
Level 8
Holly sh. This 330w PSU I got from amazon seems to have issues. I`m gonna open a new thread see if anyone knows anything about.

a100 wrote:
Holly sh. This 330w PSU I got from amazon seems to have issues. I`m gonna open a new thread see if anyone knows anything about.


Don't overclock your GTX 980Ti, but rather keep it at the standard Nvidia GTX 980Ti Reference card settings, and you should be fine w/the Dell 330W power supply. Overclocking requires more power. Outside of benchmarking, you're not gaining anything when it comes to gaming w/overclocking. The GTX 980Ti is already a fast card. I would assume you are using the 180W as the other power supply, for the rest of the system?
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. ROG Zephyrus GA401QM (Q14) Laptop, AMD Ryzen 9 5900H CPU; Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU; 24 GB DDR4 (1x8 GB, 1x16); 1 TB Samsung Pro980 M.2 SSD; Windows 10 Pro

Korth
Level 14
Two PSUs serving the same motherboard/daughterboards ... it can be done, people do it all the time. But if the PSUs are mismatched - or their loads are mismatched - there's a sort of horseshoe transformer effect which adds line noise (phase impedance) that can produce ripples or harmonics on the weaker PSU. Probably works flawlessly for 99% of people 99% of the time, but I'm neurotic about avoiding hardware issues, lol.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

a100
Level 8
Tnx for sharing guys.

Well what bugs me is that my Asus 230w PSU is doing absolutely fine with my GTX980Ti being overclocked. Works like a champ.

Question is, Dell 330w is much more powerful than Asus 230W, how does it go down while Asus one remain up and just fine without even being heated?!!!!!!