90w power supply insufficient for C90s

As title says, my 90w power supply seems to be insufficiently suppling power when gaming. The battery always is worn down somewhat after gaming even when only at standard speed. Just recently after a good 2 hours of batlefield2142, my battery life was down to 10% and I had to shut down.

I know the revision for the 120w psu does not apply to my board but then why is it that the battery is being drained? I know the 120w psu would probably fix this.

My specs -
2.13ghz C2D
8600mgt ddr2
2gig ram, stock from gentech pc so it is asus approved
vista premium
external sound card

From gentech pc

 

interesting....I have the 90w but haven't noticed a drain....I'll watch it

EDIT: I have MB rev F06

 

Hmm, I have the ealier mobo version (F03) and haven't noticed it any power being drained. I'm also usually connected to 5 usb devices and an external monitor and my battery is always on 100% after gaming.

Have you tried running 3dmark06? Does that drain your battery too when you're power is plugged in?

 

It takes a little while to start to drain. Like when the heat rises and the fans start to spin a little faster, not full throttle but definitely spinning.

I'm going to let this thing cool and recharge overnight and then run 3dmark05/06 and maybe try and pinpoint when it happens.

 

Try running 3dmark06 plugged in without the battery. BTOtech said that was the test for this sometime back IIRC. Let us know, my adapter gets pretty hot but so did my Acer Ferrari adapter (the Acer is soon to be a Linux box, but that's another thread

 

Okay, I'm going to try 4 things - 3dmark05 and06 without overclocking, then do them both again at max voerclocking.

Wish me luck

EDIT: The results are as follows with the battery pulled out and the free versions of 3dmark
3dmark05 / no OC: Test completed but program crashed compiling results. Performance seemed to be on par with normal

 

if you just bought it from Ken @ Gentech, then simply tell him, he'll exchange the power adapter to a 120W instead. Or just post long enough and he'll see this thread..

I wouldn't say all c90s are like this. maybe "Some" of the early versions requires a 120V power brick. So the title isn't really fitting. This may be an individual case, not until more people have this problem.

 

Well then lets see if people have the same problem I do. Post if you have a problem and lets see if maybe the earlier versions should've had a 120w psu as well. My revision is F06, the last revision before the 120w psu was standard.


And as for my results, again the free versions of 3dmark05/06 with no battery.

05 w/ no OC: Full test, standard score
06 w/ no OC: Full test, standard score
05 w/ OC: Computer dies after first test

I did the last test three times and all 3 the computer couldn't finish the first test.

 

For some reason, I also randomly finish 3dmark06 in overclock mode. Most of the time it crashes as well (OC mode )... But I dont seem to have too much problems with standard and gaming mode. And, better check the GPU if ur having problems on the first 2 tests. What were your temps while running 3dmark 06 ? Mine crashes when the GPU reaches around 94C just on the first 2 tests....

 

It's not the gpu. The PSU is the power brick and the "crash" is "total shutdown". My computer just dies and I have to rpess the power button and restart it. This is because the computer has no battery to draw additional power from because the 90w unit is not enough to power my cpu when overclocking. It can power it fine when I'm on normal mode.

I also said nothing about ever having problems with the first two tests. The program crashed at the end of the first one but I am also wondering if maybe my internet crapped out and it errored up or something because when it went to go check online, it couldn't.

 

Can you confirm what mobo version you have?

I just tried finished the 3dmark06 in overclock mode without battery, and it ran just fine.

 

F06 revision, the last revision where the 90w psu was standard then it jumped to the 120w

 

Then you might need, jsut ask your reseller to exchange it and if it does not want (bought since 1 month?) to, RMA it to Asus. They will throw a F08 motherboard and a 120W AC adapter. Remove everything inside it before sending though, because it's likely Asus would only resend you a new unit.

 

see ideally I would not want to send the whole computer, just do a swap where they send me the 120w unit then I send them back the 90w on delivery.

I guess if I have to I'll do it but I sent a message to gentech (read - Ken) first and I'll see what they say. Maybe there's an odd setting or something I messed with on accident that might cause it or something weird. I'd actually prefer to hear back that I messed up a program and that if I change it, everything will be fine.

 

Ken at Gentech (who I consider the guru of these sort of things told me he ran 3dmark06 over and over for three weeks with a 90w PS, mb rev < f07, (without the battery?) and couldn't get it to crash.

Ken, can you chime in on this re the tests that I understood you correctly? Have an opine on 'theman's' situation?

thanks

 

I'm going to do some more gaming tonight but I think I might try not overclocking at all and seeing if there's any battery drain. I'll report anything odd back later on tonight.

 

Could be just a bad power supply, we can just swap a new one try.

Yes theZoid, I've tested C90S MB revision F06 or older with C90S 512MB DDR2 no problem, so far we have not receive any RMA for C90S 90W power supply so this could be the first one as it happens to every other models that power supply is defective and needs to be replace.

FIY:
if you have MB revision F07 or F08 and you get 90W power supply with 512MB DDR2 then you need 120W as well just like GDDR3 video card, it may run fine on standard mode but I've test a unit with 512MB DDR2 90W power supply on game mode for couple days, guess what, it fried the power supply, but that only happen on F07 and F08.

 

Mine is an early version that needs a 120W to function proper and I didn't notice until COD4 came out and I had it from the beginning. Seems others are starting to notice this now too, interesting.

 

Guess I'll be a guinea pig then. Unfortunately I got roped into some other duties for the evening and I have more tomorrow that will take up most of the day so I won't be able to do further testing until monday night at the earliest

 

how I can check my c90s board version? cpu-z report A02...should I open it .... again ????

 

Yes, you'll have to open your notebook. The mobo version number will be a sticker that is on your ram socket.

 

Hey guys, If you call Asus and say that your power brick is over heating while using your C90, they will send you a new one free of charge and even let you keep the old one.

 

I send mine 90W back after I got my 120W. Don't abuse Asus support, thanks to jacka** we now only have a 90 return no questions asked at Costco.

 

I asked the support rep if I needed to send it back and he told me no.

 

Hey, if I told them I'd like to replace my motherboard to the lastest version because OC mode under F03 does not work with the E4500, would they do it freely?

 

Okay, as resolution to my problem when I get home from college next week they will do a cross-ship with a new power supply and see if my old one was defective and see if the new one fixes the problem.

 

90w is enough for any config which has an e6700 or lower with ddr2 card, in is not enough when ddr3 card is used. this may be different for later revision bios and mainboard. when i found this a few months ago 90 wat was fine as long as ddr3 was not present.

 

Eddie, we remember....also Ken says to the contrary re; MB rev F06 and earlier and the gddr3 card....that's why we're all confused (me) on the issue.

 

i dont see why this is an issue any more. since ddr3 came out these things have been shipping with 120w with or without ddr3. the gap between the issue was about a week. i know we sent out about a dozen adapters to replace 90w units shipped in that week. this shouldnt even be an issue anymore.

 

Unless you plan on upgrading your ddr2 video card to a more powerful one. Chances are the 90W unit will probably need to be upgraded at that point.

 

yes if you have MB revision F07, revision F08 all shipped with 120W.

 

sorry for the OT, but no news about a new graphic card for our notebook?

 

Hi ken and eddie

Again, for confirmation, if we have MB revision F06 or earlier, we can easily upgrade to gddr3 without having to replace our 90W power supply ?

 

NO you have to have 120w for any reviesion to get ddr3 vga

 

oh well. thanks. i just hope that resellers could also provide us w 120W power supply if we decide to upgrade to gddr3.

 

ddr3 is not in the channel and actually may not be coming back at all. atm dd2 is the only option. ddr3 is baclordered and may be gone all together