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avalys

2 Posts

6737

April 29th, 2007 16:00

Precision 530: AGP voltage out of range - harmful?

I have a Precision 530 workstation. I recently added a second (2.8 GHz) processor to it, and upgraded the video card to a newer model (Geforce 7600). Now, whenever the system boots, it gives me an error message saying "Alert: previous voltage failure." In the BIOS event log, it says "Voltage out of range: AGP slot". The system still works fine, and games run fine, with no stability or quality problems. The GPU and CPU temperatures are normal. I assume that the power supply is not strong enough to power both CPUs and my power-hungry video card - but as long as everything is running fine, should I worry? Am I slowly doing damage to some poor voltage regulator somewhere? Does anyone make upgraded power supplies that will fit in the 530's case?

DELL-Jesse L

Moderator

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17.4K Posts

April 30th, 2007 18:00

avalys,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Update the bios in the system to see if that will resolve the error message.

avalys

2 Posts

May 7th, 2007 22:00

Thanks for the suggestion, but that didn't solve it.

Alexraptor

20 Posts

August 5th, 2007 23:00

The problem appears to be a Bios incompatibility between the 3N384 motherboard and the graphic card and/or its bios. With a Precision 530 myself i can relate to that very well as i have been running a 7800GS extremely overclocked for almost a year now without performance loss or damage to the graphics card.
The power supply on the 530 is quite adequate with 460w and a total of 32a combined output on both 12v rails, its powerful enough to power any Nvidia AGP card on the market.
 
I suspect the actual problem lies with that the newer cards being of AGP 3.0/AGP8x format, since the AGP Pro slot is natively and supports only up to AGP4x speeds. AGP8x signals at 0.8 volts while the 4x speeds signals at 1.5 volts. While all AGP8x cards are backwards compatible with 4x slots, it is my beleif that since the bios is old it reacts to that the card is designed for native 0.8 volts, and since the slot delivers 1.5 volts the Bios may beleive that it is in fact overloading the card and thats why it complains the voltage is out of range.
 
Again there is no true explanation to it but that is the logical conclusion i have come to based on the avaible information ;)

Paul007

4 Posts

September 29th, 2007 15:00

Hi,
I have the same problem with a Precision 530 and a PNY GeForce 7600GS 256MB AGP, and am slowly coming to the same conclusion. However it would be reassuring if someone from Dell would offer a few words of advice since it is clearly Dell BIOS related.
 
 

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