Help me understand my voltages, please!

[Daniel ~]

Hmmmm.
core voltage 1.92
+3.3 voltage: 1.55
+5 voltage: 4.88
-5 voltage: 1.49
+12 voltage: 11.98
-12 voltage: 1.79

High time I understood what these readings MEAN! This is under 100% CPU load.

Does someone have the time to spell it out for me?

[Kaitain]

a couple of those voltages look seriously out of spec.

First up, the science bit: A Volt is a measure of potential difference.
The potential difference between two points A and B is one volt if the work done in taking one coulomb of positive charge from B to A is one joule. It helps if you imagine the electron to be a ballbearing, and B to be uphill of A, and the voltage refers to the steepness of the slope - it's a measure of the driving force making the electrons move.

Voltage has a direction, it is arbitrarily decided that its direction is from positive to negative (same as physical current).

So, in your computer, you have a "ground" voltage - as this'll be connected to Earth, it's voltage will be about 0V. Everything else is taken in reference to the ground voltage.

The voltages listed by MBM and the like should match their titles - the core voltage is the voltage applied to your CPU.

So the voltage applied to your CPU core is + 1.92V
The +3.3 Voltage, as its name implies, should be within a fraction of a volt of +3.3V
Ditto, the + 5 Voltage should be about +5V. Typically, motherboards will handle 0.2V either side of the spec value, so 4.88V is probably OK. Your +12 Voltage is also good.

I would, however, be VERY worried about your -12 V line - I can't remember what it's used for, but it's 13V too positive.

Other, more qualified people will tell you how to fix these, though as it means fiddling with the innards of a PSU, you might not want to.

Anyway, scream if you have any more questions.

[Daniel ~]

Could be the fact that I'm O/cing to 212 X 9.5 ?

For some reason my voltages always seem to look appox like this. I was hoping it was SUPPOSED to! ":O]

Box is very stable though. Is there room for improvement? That is can I do anything to correct... other than the completely inconceivable, un clock it.?

It a 400watt Sparkle BTW.

[Kaitain]

Some PSU's (Sparkle I think's one) have trimming potentiometers for adjusting the voltages on each line. It's a fiddly business requiring a jeweller's screwdriver, a voltmeter and no fear of a) getting zapped and b) zapping stuff.

The only really accurate measure of voltage on-board comes from the BIOS, so reboot into BIOS and look at that. Windows messes with the way programs interact with the computer's hardware enough to distort the values they read :/

[Daniel ~]

I lack all four! LOL
Thank you Kaitain, I'll go check it out!

[Daniel ~]

From the BIOS:
Vcore = 1.90
VAGP = 1.55
+5 = 4.91
+12 = 11.91
VIO = 3.24
VDIMM = 2.92
V BAT (V) = 3.06
5 VSB (V) = 5.34

[SteveI]

The bios looks much better. Given your overclock, I'd say those readings are fine.