Antec Quattro 850 PSU & 8800GT

[MrB]

I'm posting here just on the off chance that someone from Yoyotech will see it and may be able to do something.

Just over a couple of months ago I purchased an Antec Quattro 850 PSU, in anticipation of a machine upgrade. Well the rest of the machine has now been upgraded and I find that there is a compatibility problem between these PSU and 8800GT graphics cards. This shows itself in two ways, I get an error when coming out of standby about insufficient power and I get a 3DMark06 score of 1087! I thought that games weren't as impressive as I thought they'd be with the new card!

I realise that I probably need to RMA this back to Antec and see if they can provide a fix or a refund, but I just wondered if someone from Yoyotech would be able to do something quicker. From what I'm reading I'd be happy to swap it for a Corsair PSU.

Any advice/help gratefully appreciated.

[Blitzen]

PCI-E connector plugged into card?

That PSU is more than capable of running high end cards in SLi let alone a 8800GT

[MrB]

Yes, I have checked that - in fact I have moved the modular cable from one of the red ports on the PSU to another. The one thing I haven't tried is changing the cable - so I'll give that a try and report back.

I realise it should be more than capable - I just have seen other reports on forums of people having the same problem. I think Antec are aware there is an issue with certain NVidia cards.

Thanks for the suggestion

[MrB]

Well, tried both cables and both ports and also twin molex connectors with an adaptor - sadly all have the same problem.

I'm currently thinking of trying my old 450W Enermax with a bare minimum system to see if that works - does that sound like a good idea?

Current spec is ASUS P5K-E, 4Gb RAM, E2180, 2 SATA HD - I'm assuming I would disconnect the other HD and optical drives.

[YOYOtech - Kul]

Hey
If you rma the psu, for my attention, will get it actioned asap for you
at the bottom of the webpage you will see 'Returns Policy', click on that download form, fill and send with psu
Will action on that as soon as i receive the rma

Regards
Kul

[MrB]

Excellent, thanks. Out of interest can I RMA in person? Just that I'm in London most of the time and I can imagine it'll cost quite a bit to post.

[YOYOtech - Kul]

Thats even better!!
Make sure when you come in, see me
Will have you sorted in no time!!

Kul

[gabbadude]

Has this been resolved?? I have the EXACT same issue, I posted my thread here
Not enough power for EN8800GT??

I am going to be going back to the supplier tomorrow to see whats wrong. I would really appreciate it if i had some info to take them from this thread.

[markuserectus]

I am planing on using the exact combination of hardware. please post if their is a fix.

[gabbadude]

I have personally confirmed that the problem exists with the Antec 850W TPQ PSU. I plugged the card into a 350W AOpen PSU and it worked beautifully!! So Antec is going to need to do some serious damage control when these 8800GT's start becoming a major problem!

See this thread: Not enough power for EN8800GT?? - PC Perspective Forums

[MrB]

Yes, I can confirm too that changing the PSU from an Antec to a Corsair (many thanks to Yoyotech for doing this) fixed my problem too. Much better than Antec's solution which would have involved sending it back to Rotterdam!

[markuserectus]

I was wondering whether the same problem is being found on its big brother the 1KW version.

[MrB]

I think I had seen references to that having a problem too. Have you done a web search about it?

[AntecRep]

Antec’s TruePower Quattro power supplies, the TPQ-850 and TPQ-1000 have more than enough power to run an 8800 graphics card and are SLI certified by NVIDIA. The actual issue with the graphics card and System Sentinel is a communication issue. The Supply has plenty of power, but the card is not handling it properly.

This problem is not only with the Antec supply. Other brands of power supply are having these issues as well. There have been reports of power supplies from Corsair, ThermalTake, Enermax, Rosewill, OCZ, XCLIO, and Silverstone not working with these cards as well. I cannot post the links to support all of that, but you can do your own search of " 8800 sentinel PSU " to find them.

Nvidia SLI certified our power supply to work with the cards. Months after the launch of their card we started to have problems with the 8800GTX and the Quattro supplies. We implemented a fix at this time because we were the only company with the issue. This fix worked for any user having the 8800GTX issue.

Then Nvidia released the (G92) core series of graphics cards GTS/GT. These cards sometimes do not work with either the original or fixed version of our power supply. We have been researching the issue, and Nvidia has been testing this issue in their labs. The problem appears to be a hardware interaction. With the right (wrong?) motherboard/graphics card/PSU, this issue occurs. Many combinations work, however (we’ve got an off-the-shelf Crosshair+8800GT 512+Quattro 850 system running perfectly in our lab), so changing any of the components could possibly make the system work. It seems that a bios fix/flash is going to be the final solution, but we don’t have any definite answers at this time.

[gabbadude]

2.5 months late but hey, you still replied LOL!

This problem is not only with the Antec supply. Other brands of power supply are having these issues as well. There have been reports of power supplies from Corsair, ThermalTake, Enermax, Rosewill, OCZ, XCLIO, and Silverstone not working with these cards as well.

If this is the case, then why is my Zalman PSU that I swopped for the Antec working without a problem

Anyways,...Thanks for replying. Seems Antec is juggling with the problem and they don't know how to solve it.

Remember, it's all about what the customer experiences.

[YOYOtech - Mark]

hi there, it is not only the PSU causing this problem, it is the combination of the 3 item running - the motherboard, graphics card and PSU......only certain combinations are having these problems....

the PSU units are getting the blame - but it is something on the graphics card are the cause.....

the easy way of sorting this is to swap the PSU over....

but we have had instore examples of antec PSU working fine with the 8800 range of card, yet on another system they will not, and we have to change the PSU over....

hope this helps
mark