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nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:48 am
by ramborc
hi guys, capn stern did a good job of fixing my pc, only problem is, and we think this is a nvidia 8800 gtx bug perhaps, that this sentinel warning keeps appearing every time a turn on:

'Your NVIDIA graphics card is not receiving sufficient power. As
a result, the graphics card has lowered its performance to a
level that allows continued safe operation.

To remedy the problem, ensure that your NVIDIA graphics card has
the supplemental power connector attached.'

stern said the connector is attached and its a 650w power battery type thingy (for the life of me cant remember what theyre called) so theres plenty of oomf. ive also noticed, i can play l4d offline, no difference playing l4d ie theres no chan ge to the grpahics even after the supposed lowered performance due to insufficient power?

any1?

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:29 am
by MAD-Miles
Probably been checked already, but av u got the correct driver?

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

I know it sorted out problems for my cards running in sli, like magic lol.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:01 pm
by JohnMcClane
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/514/7/
Seems those cards are power hungry beasts, up to 270W under load.
If you've also got a quad core chip and a few gig of RAM you might be pushing the PSU somewhat

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:24 pm
by MudShark
Have got one power line dedicated to the Graphics card? i.e. is there anything else attached to that particular cable from the power supply? What brand is the power supply? Not all PSUs are equal.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:53 pm
by bambam
I'm betting this is too much to be a coincidence... the 8800GTX is famously power hungry and uses two additional PCIe connectors on the back of the card to feed its demand for 12v current. Either both connectors are connected to the same 12v power rail, or the 650W PSU actually has a limit on what it can deliver on the 12v rail. The first action has to be to take the cover off the PC and follow back where the two PCIe connectors are being fed from to check they are two independent feeds. Also check the PSU spec to see if you need to plan multiple 12v sources carefully to make sure they come from different channels in the PSU.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 5:36 pm
by IXL
650w
Bambam, Muddy, McClane and Bullet raise the right points. But is your powersupply actually 650w peak? A lot of people make the mistake that its actually a XXXw supply, when infact it isnt, its a 500w or something that can just about handle higher watt etc under extreme load for short periods of time and they get marked up higher spec than they actually are..... 12v rails are usually quite common to fail or not be stable. What is the manufacturer of the PSU and how old is it?

If you havent a spare PSU, try running the pc with as little HD's, Optical and other stuff you just dont need to boot the PC, to see if you get the same error.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:54 pm
by ramborc
tx 4 the reply guys, ill run this past stern and see ifany of this rings any bells, seeing as he was the one who put it back together...

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:00 pm
by IXL
Are you overclocking at all? That would affect the amps in the 12v rail.

Seems your not alone tho..

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=52141

Try going into your BIOS and checking the voltages on each rail, they should be -+ 5% their stated voltage.

If you dont have the option in your BIOS try downloading everest home and checking that way.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:11 am
by bambam
see if anything in this thread helps... you are not alone:

http://www.fswaterconfigurator.com/foru ... opic=446.0

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:28 pm
by Stern
Hey Jeeps, I'll chat with you on Sunday about this once we determine that the actual make of the psu is.

Re: nvidia sentinel warning

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:24 pm
by ramborc
well, i still havent checked inside my pc for the type of psu i have but i did buy dow II the other day and its fabby apart from the fact that whenever more than my squads are on the screen it dies on me, that is the frame rate is slow as hell, i can actually pick all my actions for all my squads and not lose time doing it? when i zoom in as far as i can it picks up, obviously then there are way fewer models on the screen at any given time. so can you tell if this is still a psu problem? i mean all of the options says 'needs a fast video card and big psu', so far as i can tell my psu aint big enough for the 8800gtx and my graph card is lowering its perfomance due to this, probably not a good concoction with which to enjoy dow II with right?