Top-Tier Rig Random Shutdowns

[FalconFour]

*squint*

srsly? Feel like I'm reading an alternate reality here. SilverStone, far as I've known is a no-name Chinese knockoff brand... and they're getting reviewed professionally? This is freakin' me out a bit. Maybe I'm wrong about the no-name Chinese thing. I dunno. I just wouldn't trust 'em more than I'd trust a real, established brand...

I mean, a 1500W PSU should weigh like, 30 pounds... o.o

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[NLA]

I mean, a 1500W PSU should weigh like, 30 pounds... o.o

It does weigh like 30 pounds. I remember it being pretty heavy when I pulled it out of the box.

I put a lot of thought into reliability and build quality when I was shopping for all the parts. I did my research, and I remember reading that this PSU had been tested and was a high-quality, solid 1500W supply, even in a "hot box" testing environment. It's a shame it can't keep up with the load. It's also a shame there isn't a better, higher-wattage Gold/Platinum certified supply out there for me to blow all my money on.

I think I have an old 520W KINGWIN modular power supply lying around somewhere.. Was going to give it to my parents so they could use it in a simple office rig I was building for them -- sorry mom & dad! -- but I might just set it in the empty DVD slots in the mining tower and connect up the 6990 so it has its own private power supply. I don't think this position will compromise effective PSU cooling since there is just SO MUCH airflow in the case. I think it will fit in just fine too.. the mining tower case is certainly big enough, and that PSU isn't all too big. Maybe I'll run the power cord out through one the rig's unused water-cooling holes? lol. Not an ideal setup I know but I really want this rig to be set up as a single unit, just plug it into the wall, close the door, and its good to go, helping me pay for rent.

[NLA]

BUMP & Update:

I've managed to jam the 520W supply in, fitting it snugly where the 5.25" drives would go. I've slotted the power cord through one of the watercooling holes on the back of the case.

Right now I'm waiting for a dual-PSU 24-pin connector in the mail (so that both PSU's are turned on when the whole computer is turned on) and the 520W will power the 6990 by itself (or a single 6970 if that would be easier for a 520W supply to power). The 520W supply is maybe 4 years old, was great when I used it with my 8800GT back in the day, and it only has some 6-pin connectors. So I'm using a couple dual-molex-to-8-pin adapters that came with the 6970's with 4 separate molex lines from the 520W to power the 6990. Since I'm splitting it up so that the whole thing is powered by two internal PSU's, I plan to overclock all the cards and aim for at least 2100MH/s, if not slightly higher. Heat exhaust be damned!

Will post pics once the cables arrive in the mail this upcoming M/T! Its all finally coming together! Am still open to suggestions/advice about the rig, interpretations of power requirements, etc.

[Revalin]

You can turn the power supply on for testing by putting a paper clip between the green wire and any black wire on the motherboard connector.

[FalconFour]

You can turn the power supply on for testing by putting a paper clip between the green wire and any black wire on the motherboard connector.

I had to read the last post 3 times to find the relevant part of his reply where it was even implied that he was having trouble finding out how to switch on the secondary power supply... I was like, "I don't think this guy's noob enough to not know about green-to-ground to power on", but at the same time I had to look over your post like, "wait, I've seen this guy before, he's not one of those non-English-speaking-so-they-don't-follow-the-thread-context noobs dropping replybombs* in threads... sooo...

... Then I found it:

Right now I'm waiting for a dual-PSU 24-pin connector in the mail (so that both PSU's are turned on when the whole computer is turned on)

Ahhhh... wow, he really DOESN'T know!

Dude, just jump green to ground. Look in the ATX connector for the green pin. "Green = PwrOn" used to be labeled on those power supplies but they got lazy... just to be safe I'd actually recommend powering a SATA hard drive/SSD off that power supply as well, just to give the +5v line something to do.

In fact, merging power plugs of both PSUs using a "dual" splitter cable is probably fuck'a dangerous - you'll then have two power supplies competing for voltage regulation. Don't put two independent voltage rails (e.g. "+12v" of one and "+12v" of another) together. They maintain their regulation by adjusting their load to match a certain level (thousands of times a second), so if there are two self-regulated supplies feeding into each other, one could blow the other up by backfeeding it - theoretically. It's likely never happened, but PSUs have protection against that happening (that doesn't make it any more "proper"). Just jump the green pin to ground and call it a day

* - replybomb (n.):
Example:
joe: hay when i boot windoes with this new driver i installed it gives me an error saying the file is missing or currupt hurp?
jack: i seen that before somewhere... hit f19, stand on your head, hold mouse cursor by the tail and spin the display in circles and post the error code it gives you
joe: haha that was fun 0xDEadbeEF
jack: sweet, ok, you can fix that by inserting a slice of bologna in the cd-rom drive and singing glory hallelujah in b-minor.
joe: holy shit it worked
mark: U CAN BOOT TO SAFE MODE BY PRESSING F8 AT STARTUP AND DELETE ALL YOUR COOKIES!!

[P4man]

You got it right the first time
Im sure he is ordering a cable like this "Dual PSU 24-Pin Adapter Cable":


Guess what it does

[NLA]

I know about shorting the two pins, but I don't want a paperclip sticking out of anything related to electricity if I can help it. So I'm ordering the cable out of principal. But I guess I could get a coated paperclip and strip off the ends and short the pins, but idk, can you blame me for being wary of sticking paperclips near electrical pins? lol

[FalconFour]

It's called "wire"

But actually, the paperclip is "ground" - you can actually just screw the paperclip down to one of the GPU bracket screws, and plop the green wire smack onto the (now mounted securely) paperclip. Instant bird stoning! But bird stoning is mean, it hurts - can't we kill bugs instead? =P

also: oh god I love that dual adapter, great freakin' idea. Usually chinese shit-shop components blindly shove I/O pins into any combination people would be dumb enough to search for (creating a product based blindly on demand alone - ugh! what next, HDMI to SATA adapters?) - but clearly that adapter is made by someone that understands its purpose Good one!

[MadHacker]

I use the paperclip for testing...
if yor woried about the paperclip touching anything else...
the just wrap tape around it...
if you don't want sticky tape residue on the power connector...
put paper or a plastic bag...
then tape that.
then you will feel a bit safer while waiting for your connector...

fyi, I run the same power supply with 4 6970 GPUs...
using a kilowatt meter i pull about 1100W

[Revalin]

can you blame me for being wary of sticking paperclips near electrical pins? lol

Not at all, better safe than sorry. 

But in this case it's OK.  The black wire is ground, the green wire is an input.  So the paperclip is completely grounded already and nothing will happen if it brushes the case or something.  Just don't let it touch any live wires (the same as you shouldn't let live wires touch the case).

On my test bench power supply I just wrap a piece of blue masking tape over it.

[Revalin]

Im sure he is ordering a cable like this "Dual PSU 24-Pin Adapter Cable":

+1, it's all good if you use that kind of cable.  Just don't use one that connects all the pins.

[MadHacker]

Im sure he is ordering a cable like this "Dual PSU 24-Pin Adapter Cable":

+1, it's all good if you use that kind of cable.  Just don't use one that connects all the pins.

not to hijack this thread
I plan to make my own... i got 2 24Pin Power Extention calbes... for almost cheaper then if i was to order from the US (& shipping)
looking at the picture ...only thing that is connected is the black and green wire... which makes cents...
however i just want o clarify that there isn't a third wire. looks like shadow... but i just want to make sure.

[Revalin]

Yep, that's just a shadow.  All you need is the green wire plus any black wire.

[P4man]

fyi, I run the same power supply with 4 6970 GPUs...
using a kilowatt meter i pull about 1100W

Hmm.. thats a tad less then I would have expected. With 85% efficiency that means the PSU is delivering "just" 935W. Assuming the rest of your system is comparable to his, changing once 6970 for a 6990 like the OP adds 75W max (if everything back at stock speed). Although its close enough to the stated specs to make me uncomfortable, it makes you think the PSU should be able to deliver that.  OH well, for the price of a cable its still a theory worth testing .

[MadHacker]

fyi, I run the same power supply with 4 6970 GPUs...
using a kilowatt meter i pull about 1100W

Hmm.. thats a tad less then I would have expected. With 85% efficiency that means the PSU is delivering "just" 935W. Assuming the rest of your system is comparable to his, changing once 6970 for a 6990 like the OP adds 75W max (if everything back at stock speed). Although its close enough to the stated specs to make me uncomfortable, it makes you think the PSU should be able to deliver that.  OH well, for the price of a cable its still a theory worth testing .

I have a 6990 and 4 5830 running off of an Antec AX1200
its pulling 1065W from the wall
if i disable the 6990 from mining then it pulls 746W
so that a difference of 319W (not sure what the 6990 pulls when idle)
all Idle it pulls 286W from the wall.

[NLA]

So topic bump and update here,

I've hooked it up so that the second PSU, the 520W, is inside the tower and connected up properly. I've shorted the power-on pin and ground pin with a paperclip. I'm powering the 6990 with 2x dual-molex-to-8-pin connectors. The 520W supply has 3 molex lines (a cord with a bunch of molex connectors) and a SATA line, which I used a Female-Sata-to-Male-Molex on, so I have 4 molex lines. One molex from each line is connected to one molex slot on the molex-to-8-pin connector. IT SHOULD WORK JUST FINE. But there are issues.

• If the 520W PSU is running before the rest of the PC is on, when I turn the main PC (by pressing the main power button), the 520W PSU shuts down and I have to fiddle with the power-on paperclip to get it working again.
• When I've actually gotten the whole system up and running in Linux, where the OS can see all the cards and report temps etc, when I actually set one of the 6990 cores to start mining with phoenix, the 520W PSU shuts down.

  Why would it shut down as soon as I increase the load on it? Doesn't make sense. This thing is rated for 520W.

EDIT: Just switched the 520W from powering the 6990 to powering a 6970 set to low wattage BIOS switch position. Same symptoms. Ubuntu will start booting just fine and then the 520W PSU will just shut off. I have to play with the paperclip a bit to make it start running again. :/

[MadHacker]

So topic bump and update here,

I've hooked it up so that the second PSU, the 520W, is inside the tower and connected up properly. I've shorted the power-on pin and ground pin with a paperclip. I'm powering the 6990 with 2x dual-molex-to-8-pin connectors. The 520W supply has 3 molex lines (a cord with a bunch of molex connectors) and a SATA line, which I used a Female-Sata-to-Male-Molex on, so I have 4 molex lines. One molex from each line is connected to one molex slot on the molex-to-8-pin connector. IT SHOULD WORK JUST FINE. But there are issues.

• If the 520W PSU is running before the rest of the PC is on, when I turn the main PC (by pressing the main power button), the 520W PSU shuts down and I have to fiddle with the power-on paperclip to get it working again.
• When I've actually gotten the whole system up and running in Linux, where the OS can see all the cards and report temps etc, when I actually set one of the 6990 cores to start mining with phoenix, the 520W PSU shuts down.

  Why would it shut down as soon as I increase the load on it? Doesn't make sense. This thing is rated for 520W.

EDIT: Just switched the 520W from powering the 6990 to powering a 6970 set to low wattage BIOS switch position. Same symptoms. Ubuntu will start booting just fine and then the 520W PSU will just shut off. I have to play with the paperclip a bit to make it start running again. :/

it may be rated for 520W but that doesn't mean an individual Rail can take that kind of load...
what is teh max wattage in teh 12v per rail.
it may not be a single rail.

[NLA]

it may be rated for 520W but that doesn't mean an individual Rail can take that kind of load...
what is teh max wattage in teh 12v per rail.
it may not be a single rail.

Hm, that's a good point. Let's see here, from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121013 ,

Output
    +3.3V@32A,+5V@42A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,
    -12V@0.8A,-5V@0.5A,+5VSB@2.5A

So it looks like it has 2 12v rails.. Fgsfds. Hm. I might actually have to go and buy a new power supply after all. :/

[MadHacker]

it may be rated for 520W but that doesn't mean an individual Rail can take that kind of load...
what is teh max wattage in teh 12v per rail.
it may not be a single rail.

Hm, that's a good point. Let's see here, from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121013 ,

Output
    +3.3V@32A,+5V@42A,+12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,
    -12V@0.8A,-5V@0.5A,+5VSB@2.5A

So it looks like it has 2 12v rails.. Fgsfds. Hm. I might actually have to go and buy a new power supply after all. :/

well its safe to assume that 1 of the 12V rails goes to the motherboard connector.
the other goes to PCIe and molex connectors.
U may be able to run a 6970 off of it.
not sure....
then u would have enough power to run the other 2 6970's and teh 6990 off of the 1500W PS

worth a try...

[NLA]

Any chance that there's an 8-pin EPS to 6+2-pin or 8-pin PCI-e adapter out there? The EPS rail definitely has enough juice, the pins are just wrong. And looking at this power supply, it looks like the other 12v rail is the dual 6-pin PCI-e rail, which I guess I could get a dual-6-pin to 8-pin adapter for. But it really all comes down to whether or not an EPS rail adapter exists.