don m Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 I had my system hooked up to a gas generator. The power went to a surge protector then to the system. So, I want to know if anyone thinks I erred in using the gas generator. Wouldn’t the surge protector and the psu be able to handle small voltage changes? The gas generator I used is a champion C46540 that peaks at 4000w and runs at 3500w. When using the pc, I also had a light and a small space heater on. The voltage on the generator indicated that I was running at half capacity. Twice, when using the pc with the generator, the system froze and I had to turn the pc off and turn it back on. After I got the power back, I noticed that the video card does not show high quality divx files without horizontal wavy lines around the edges of objects. And once, the monitor said that there is no signal, while the pc was still running and once the system rebooted itself seconds after turning the pc on. And, if memory serves me well, I think the monitor gave me the no signal message once before I used the generator. Maybe I just have a bad video card? No one had replied so far, but I think I know what I should do after looking at an earlier post at which random shutdowns of a psu was discussed. I am going to get the UPS w/ AVR that was recommended by Elitekiller and use it with the gas generator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted December 20, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted December 20, 2007 Sounds like there may be an issue with your video card, are you able to test the system with a different card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don m Posted December 20, 2007 Author Share Posted December 20, 2007 I copied one of the high quality divx files over to my daughter's pc via the network and it played ok on her system, although it was a little slow there were no artifacts. So, I suppose it is the video card and I will get another one when I can. Everything else works ok. The video card so far is just defective in that one area. I suppose it would still be a good idea to have the Cyber Power UPS device in use when I use the generator. Thanks for your response. Don M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted December 20, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted December 20, 2007 I would suggest using a Voltage conditioner when using that type of power source, while a generator will produce they sometimes are not as stable as line voltage from the power company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don m Posted December 21, 2007 Author Share Posted December 21, 2007 Ok thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted December 21, 2007 Corsair Employees Share Posted December 21, 2007 No problem let us know if you have anymore questions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don m Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 I bought another video card, identical to the first one, or so I thought, it turned out that the second card has a 4 pin molex power connector instead of a 6 pin power connector that most pci express cards have. I took out the old card and put in the new card and the same behavior regarding the video artifacts happened. So I guess the first video card was ok. I left the new card in for a week or so and then decided to try the sli configuration. 1. I took the video card out to make it easier to invert the sli switch card to the sli position. 2. I installed the video cards. 3. I connected them with the bridge card. I turned the pc on and the first thing that happened is that chk disk decided I needed to have the volume on my c drive checked. I watched as it went through its routine. When it was all done it flashed a screen at me that I barely had time to read. It was something about allotted space and the master boot record. Then the pc continued to load the operating system. When I clicked on my user name, there was a stop error that flashed another screen that was gone before I could read it. I thought that the sli was not working for whatever reason. I wondered if it could be due to the different power connectors on the cards, but that does not seem very likely. I also thought that the pci express slot for the master card probably got messed up when I used the generator to power my pc a few weeks ago. So, I decided to put it back to the non sli mode since my system was mostly working ok while in non sli. After retuning everything back to non sli, I turned the pc on and got the stop error screen again. I had to go to safe mode and select a restore point from yesterday and I got my system back. Does anyone think that the fact that the 2 cards have different power connectors could make the sli not work? Since I last posted, the high definition video files have begun showing some distortion. I can still view the low btr divx videos with no distortion. I have read that since the psu I have is very efficient, it is also very sensitive to small voltage changes, so I assume it messed up my motherboard…slightly for now. It looks like it may deteriorate over time. I would appreciate any opinions about the motherboard. Could it affect the video quality? Why would I be able to use non sli and not sli if the motherboard is slightly damaged? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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