I bought myself a nice new pc, and as an "investment" (as anyone whos read my previous threads knows)

i decided to get half life 2 for it, but ive been having a few problems,
i updated my drivers etc before installing it, and then installed and got on with playing and was rather impressed.

untill it crashed that is, the screen went black, in hung on the loop of auditio it was playing, and well that was it, i had to manually reboot, when i restarted it got an error message about the graphics card not gettin enough power and it reducing its settings which it did several times( it said under troubleshooting that it may need an externail power supply if it isnt getting ample power)
thsi happened quite a few times so i called evesham, and there sending an engeneer out monday.


i also noticed that the first of the 2 graphics card was running at about 85 deg and the 2nd at about 80, the ambient temp was somewhere in the high 90's ( and rising)
i rolled back to the earlier drivers which took the temps down to somewhere in the 70's and reduced all the praphics options to low within the game, which is making it crash less.

but now after, i dunno 15 min of play ,screen goes black, "no digital imput" and i have to reboot, but i dontget the error message about not enuff power anymore.



now my question is, will having this external power supply fitted to allow the graphics cards to have ample power fix this problem, or do i need to do somthing else to stop the game crashing, and is there anything else i need to instruct the tech guy to replace/ add/ fix when he comes out

heres a quick pc spec incase u need it

Evehsham Axis 64 SLi
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3800+
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition
1GB dual channel DDR RAM (PC3200) 400MHz (2x512MB)
250GB SATA 7200rpm Hard Drive with 16Mb Cache
2 x 256MB DDR3 NVIDIA 6800GT PCI Express Graphics ( sli)


thanx
clairey

Those cards REQUIRE a 4pin power plug to just turn on by what I have read. (Nice cards, Damn fine if you ask me!) However, it sounds like Evehsham setup this system to not take the utmost of the cards. If you feel comfortable doing this, open the case and see if there is a power connector from the PSU connected to each card. If not, there is an issue, if so then it may be in the cards them selves.

im happy to open it, up ,but ull need to explain in more detail what im looking for, where how big what colour lol...... even a little diagram?

at the back upper corner of the card (opposite the Video connections) is a black power connector. This should have 4 wires and either a black or white 4 pin power plug inserted for each card.

hang on ill have a look

ok so ive opened it up, and to save me asking questions again, and making it blaintently obvious i have no clue about the insides of pcs, ive taken a photo, which ill upload to a random site and post back, when i get it working

http://www.geocities.com/the_vibe_house/Inside_pc

ive included a few shots as they didnt come out very well... i presume its the big black connector at the back, but ti only comes off one graphics card, not both and its a blue connector, not black or white

I see the power connectors on the back of the cards. One looks like the manuals and specs, the other is a square instead of rectangular, but they both are plugged into the PSU as they should be. (Good photos tho!) The next thought is how much wattage is your PSU! I dont know what it should be for 2, I know what the recomendation is for one, 480. I would guess 560 for two. (P4/Athlon require min 300 just to power processor and MB, 400 to add HDD and other peripherals)

errrrm, im not sure to be honist off the top my head how can i check?

Your computer should have either a list of what it came with including the PSU or the PSU itself will have it where you can see it.