PSU dying?

[subseb]

Im running an AMD XP2700+ (Thoroughbred-B 333FSB) on an EPOX 8KRA2+ Mobo, for the last year or so I've been running the processor at 14x by 169FSB giving about a 10% OC. This is not much but the system crashes if i push it much further. Im using Crucial PC2700 normal RAM with aggressive settings, however the memory system lacks performance on the KT600.

Anyway the question I have is whether my PSU is up to the job, recently my system has suffered from a lot of instability, Im using USDM version3 to monitor my voltages and CPU temp. The 5V rail in particular seems really low, its never actually within the ATX specification of 4.75 to 5.25 Volts, at idle it reads 4.65V when I run anything intensive like DVD transencoding, it will dip to 4.48V this seems dangerously low to me. Also when I run intensive applications my PC usually crashes not after long.

So I am wondering how accurate the USDM measurement is, the 12V rail, AGP voltage, and VDimm are pretty much spot on, but then I've heard that athlons need a strong 5V supply, could this be why my system is crashing?

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar problems?

The PSU I am using was pretty cheap, from Ebuyer, admittedly it says 550 on the model and has worked ok before. Once I checked the Molex connectors with a multimeter that was fairly accurate (+/-2%), it measured 4.98V which seems fine. However I did not check the voltages on the motherboard itself, so could it be the motherboard voltage regulation causing a drop from the 5V supply?
As you can see I have many questions so any help would be appreciated.

[danrok]

Were you checking the voltage with a meter whilst the system was under heavy load?

[cloasters]

Welcome to AOA, subseb!

The voltage is definitely low. A better PSU seems to be the solution. More money, more money. Argh.

[Aedan]

My experience with onboard voltage monitoring is that it's often far enough out to be untrustable. The multimeter is really the only way to be able to read voltages with any sense of accuracy!

[surlyjoe]

preferably a digital one...

[noorman]

you install MBM and see if it reports different.

measuring voltages (or other electrical units) in a running system isn't that easy ; doing it without damaging something that is ...

If the reporting was 0.1 Volts off, then you could attribute that to the board's circuitry, but you have very low voltages there.
If you add 0.1V to those you would have 4.75V idle and 4.58V full load; that 's bad, even after the 'so-called' (possible) correction.

If I were in your shoes, I try and test my system with another PSU (perhaps a modern one of 350W or more) to look what happens ...

What does the Bios/Setup report as Voltages, f.e. Vcore, +5V, etc. ???

Compare those with the MBM 5.3.7.0 's output and the ones you mentioned and let us know ...

[subseb]

Obviously its quite difficult to compare the bios readings for voltages and the USDM readings at the same time, but as far as I can tell the bios is reporting the same voltages.

I just checked the voltages in the PC health section in the bios, the readings are actually worse. There is no processing in bios I guess so there shouldn't be much load on the PSU.

BIOS READING ¦ USDM READING
Vcore: 1.80V ¦ 1.808V
Vagp: 1.48V ¦ 1.488V
+5V: 4.54V ¦ 4.65V
+12V: 12.03V ¦ 11.856
Vio: 3.08V ¦ 3.12V
VDimm: 2.81V ¦ 2.800V
VBAT: 3.15V ¦ 3.136V
5VSB: 4.67 ¦ 4.678V

As you can see being an older Athlon based system there is more strain on the 5V rails, seriously though 4.54V is no joke. I manually set the Vcore to 1.8V and the VDimm to 2.8V for overclocking purposes. The PC has been on at least 24 hours.

[noorman]

well, I 'd suggest that you replace your PSU with a known good one and repeat the tests you 've just done.
Or, try to measure the voltages that are below par; that will be more difficult for a person without the necessary training/expertise and w/o a decent multimeter.

pls come back

[subseb]

Originally Posted by noorman

try to measure the voltages that are below par; that will be more difficult for a person without the necessary training/expertise and w/o a decent multimeter.

pls come back

Well actually I am an electronic engineer finalist, lol, but anway I just wanted someone elses opinion, since there wasn't any documentation regarding the USDM program and its accuracy, and I thought others may have experienced the same problem with the 8KRA2+ motherboard.

I guess if I pull my fingure out, I can measure the voltages off the mosfets(being carefull not to short anything) and use my multimeter again.

[noorman]

Originally Posted by subseb

Well actually I am an electronic engineer finalist, lol, but anway I just wanted someone elses opinion, since there wasn't any documentation regarding the USDM program and its accuracy, and I thought others may have experienced the same problem with the 8KRA2+ motherboard.

I guess if I pull my fingure out, I can measure the voltages off the mosfets(being carefull not to short anything) and use my multimeter again.

hi,
I 'm an Electronics Pro too, LOL.
So, the quickest way for you will be the measurement thing; as my former teacher said "measuring is knowing" (litaraly translated) ...

Succes

let (me) us know how it turns out / what your conclusions are / how you 've fixed it when you have ...

[toaster]

What make is it? If its one of those real cheapie PSU's I would pull it out of there on principle!!

[subseb]

The current PSU label says "CyberPower P4 550"

I had a look for cyberpower on the net I only found a similar looking company who are quite professional, I say similar becuase the font and the logo used are similar but not identical. So Im guessing its probably stealing the identity and name or some recognised company. The PSU itself cost £14 18 months ago, the 550 rating is peak.

[toaster]

£14 ouch!!
Thats about the same price range as the Q-Tec timebomb of the same power rating isnt it?
I have heard that Q-Tec are banned in Finland for electrical safety reasons. However, they still sell them in Sweden, and over here the prices are outrageous...about £40 for a 550W (Peak) Q-Tec PSU. Scary.

[subseb]

Hey my new PSU arrived today from PC world component centre of all places!!
Fear not though it was actually quite a good deal, cheaper than going to PC world themselves, the same Jeantech 450W PSU is £44 in store and £30.50 online!?! £6 delivery mind.

Anyway I saw this one in a review:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/articl...e=2298&head=64

It comes out pretty good, mine is in silver or really I should say chrome, its really shiney and I was scared of leaving finger marks lol. The blue fan is more grenny blue, doesn't quite match the rest of my blue wavemaster case and coolermaster stuff but never mind. The PSU is also very very quiet.

My reading in USDM are great, I oc'ed my XP2700 Thouroughbred b from 13x166 Mhz to 11.5x200Mhz, so its now faster than an XP3200 and P4-570 in integer arithmetic.
Also my Crucial value select went from the most agreesive settings at DDR333 to DDR400 with CAS3 and slowest settings, its still faster though.
Also my Radeon 9800Pro is now running at XT speed. Phew.

Under load the readings are:
Vcore: 1.84V
Vagp: 1.488V
+5V: 4.919V
+12V: 12.342V
Vio: 3.26V
VDimm: 2.896V
Vbat: 3.136V
5VSB: 4.872

These are great compared to the other PSU, which is going in the bin or going to be hacked.

My CPU temp is around 50 degrees C. And everything is stable, hooray!

[subseb]

new sig attached

[toaster]

Is that the standard Crucial PC3200 DDR you have in that rig? I've been thinking of getting myself some of that until I can afford some blistering performance memory. Looks like it might be a good deal.

[Pandaz3]

Toaster I have some Crucial PC3200 (2x256) it is CAS 3, single sided (The chips themselves are all on the same one side of the DIMM) I had it in my NF7-S till recently and it allowed very nice overclocks. Very solid Memory in my book. The chips are made by Micron. Crucial is owned by Micron so that is no big suprise....They grow more than potatoes in Idaho.

And a big congratulations on a good PSU!

[subseb]

Actually it is the Crucial Value Select CAS2.5 PC2700 memory, I have two sticks of 512MB which are great in dual channel on an nforce platform. Anyway currently I ca only use single channel mode and the performance of the memory subsystem is a little behind the compettition on the KT600 mobo, so i overclocked the memory to 200Mhz. However the system would not boot up on all but the lowest memory timings so it's at CAS3 with very slow settings, but its working at about 2750MB/s buffered according to Sandra 2005 and at 2.9V.
If anyone can suggest some decent memory settings I'd be grateful, I have so many on the 8KRA2+, it's confusing.

[XxPowerUserxX]

just since this is on the subject of psu, ive been quite shocked at the heat levels coming from my unit as the vcore climbs up over 2.0..... bios is showing
cpu temp 51c/123f
sys temp 37c/98f
pwm temp 87c/188f
as its just beginning to get hot here, i wont be able to sustain these numbers into the middle of the summer, i know this, last yr was brutal
o voltages creating these temps are
1.76 nb
2.21 cpu
2.84 ddr 3.3 rail showing 3.53 5. rail showing 5.11 12. rail giving 12.15
again nb and cpu on liquid

[toaster]

What brand is your PSU XxPowerUserxX?