Video Card And Power Supply

[barrp]

I'm in the process of trying to install a new video card. I recently pulled the card from my back up system to get this one going for a show. Now I'm trying to get a new card set up so I can get my old card back in my back up system.

I bought a ATI Radeon HD 4650 and have spent many hours trying to get it to recognize the second monitor. I just can't get it to enable the TV. I noticed that the card requires a 350 W power supply and my system only has a 250 W supply. Would this keep the card from recognizing the second monitor? I don't mind replacing the power supply, but I don't want to do it if it's not the problem with the new card.

My old card (GForce 5500) only requires 250 W, has anyone noticed that all the new cards require more power?

[Beavis]

did you enable it in properties ?

[barrp]

Originally Posted by Beavis

did you enable it in properties ?

Yea I'm running Vista and tried to enable it in display settings and in the ATI settings. I get a blink on the screen and that's about it. The ATI settings are telling me that it's not active, but attempts to make it active don't work.

I'm surprised you didn't tell me to do all the Windows updates. I tied that as well as updating Hoster to 3.321. My system exceeds all the system requirements except for the power supply.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by barrp

Yea I'm running Vista and tried to enable it in display settings and in the ATI settings. I get a blink on the screen and that's about it. The ATI settings are telling me that it's not active, but attempts to make it active don't work.

I'm surprised you didn't tell me to do all the Windows updates. I tied that as well as updating Hoster to 3.321. My system exceeds all the system requirements except for the power supply.

I am not sure why ATI is saying Power Supply requirement is 350W, because the cards power requirement even using the fan is only 75W. To see if you need a bigger power supply you would need to total up the consumption for all the items in the computer (motherboard, disk drives, CD\DVD drives and any cards plugged in) and see what is required. You power supply should be at least 1/3 bigger than the total. It wouldn't hurt to put a 350W supply in it, but I don't think that will fix the problem.
I have an X1550 and had a hard time getting it to set-up the second screen initially. I ended up having to go to ATI/VisionTek website and downloading their latest control program to get it to work. You have to initially set it up in their control center and get it to recognize it. TV has to be plugged in and on for it to recognize it.

[barrp]

Thanks guys, I ended up returning the card. I then went to 3 stores before I found a card that said it only required a 250 W power supply. It's a GeForce 6200 OC and it was the only one they had. I Installed it, loaded the drivers and enabled the second monitor and was up and running.

Every card I looked at had a minimum for the power supply. They averaged 350 W to 400 W minimum. It may not have been my problem but it's something to keep in mind next time you buy a new card.

Thanks again

[ddouglass]

Glad you fixed it. I am not sure why they now putting this "minimum" for power supply since they have no idea what else is in your computer and those cards don't require that much power.
I will say that if you upgrade to Hoster 4.06 I would recommend you upgrade your power supply to the 350 or 400W because the newer version of Hoster does make the computer pull more power and a 250W supply may be over taxed with its increased requirements.

[barrp]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Glad you fixed it. I am not sure why they now putting this "minimum" for power supply since they have no idea what else is in your computer and those cards don't require that much power.

As a guy I use to work with would say: "I can't answer that". If I had to guess I would say that they are estimating what you are using now or the minimums are meant for hard core gamers.

Thanks for the heads up on the update, I considered it this morning and decided to wait since I had read that some were having video problem with this update and I already had video problems to deal with.

[ddouglass]

Most of the ones having video problems are using laptops with on-board viseo that is using shared memory. Other than that it is only those whose system is under-powered (processor speed, memory, and video memory) or not set-up right.
Anyway glad you have gotten it fixed.