PCIe auxilary power question...

[jrefronc]

I have a co-worker who lost his video signal yesterday. We upgraded our graphics cards from GeForce 6 series to 7900's early last year. We each installed our own card. I asked him if he made sure to plug in the auxiliary power connector for the graphics card and he dismissively said he did. He did NOT. We took his box apart when it died and sure enough no PCIe power plugged in. Now even when plugging in the 6-pin aux. power his system will not stay running for more than a minute or two after boot up.

Could he have damaged his MB or graphics card by running hard for a year without the aux. power?

Anyone seen this or know what if anything might be damaged by doing this?

[system specs:
dell dimension 9100
PIII 3 GHz
2Gb cheap ddr ram]

[jrefronc]

Anybody? Anybody heard of someone not plugging in the auxiliary power to a graphics card and having it cause problems? I guess most people read the instructions...

I found out today that the guy also hit the power button several times during shutdown and now windows wont boot - goes to recovery mode and demands the Windows disc - says windows files "corrupted or missing..."

There's your problem. ...

[ScuzziOne]

Most nVidia cards I've seen simply "throttle down" performance to reduce current draw if you don't connect the auxiliary power connector... and then others also fire up a shrill buzzer of some sort to annoy the hell out of you until you do connect the aux power. Generally doesn't result in board failure...

And, might I suggest a copy of Acronis True Image 11 for this individual??? People prone to shutting systems down incorrectly just might find this drive image archival and recovery tool quite a timesaver!

[jrefronc]

Thanks. If he stays with the company I'll suggest it. I'll look into the utilty myself anyway. Sounds promising.