Mekadave 0 Posted January 30, 2004 Hi, all! Does this sound like a going-bad/insufficient power supply to you folks? In the last couple of weeks, my PC has locked up during boot pretty often. I've checked a lot of other possible culprits, running ChkDsk, defragging the drive, running Western Digital Diagnostic (WD hard drives), cleaning the registry, scanning for virii & spyware. I haven't installed any new software lately. Nothing's shown up, so I'm checking the power. Edited to add: I also checked the RAM with 2 different RAM testing programs. No errors there, either. Once it gets going, I've been monitoring the voltage with Asus PC Probe, and the only lead that seems low at all is the +5V one, which usually hangs around 4.9, but dips to 4.8 or under whenever I actually do anything, like browse, open a program, etc. When I scroll on a large webpage, I can actually hear the fan speed change! When I check the voltage in the BIOS before I even boot, the +5V lead is down around 4.56 to 4.65. All the others hang right around where they should be. My system: Win2K SP4 Athlon XP 2100+ Palomino Antec Truepower430 Asus A7V333 Mboard WD 60GB 7200 SE (C 2x WD 80GB 7200 SE in RAID 0 config Lite-On 16X DVD-ROM 4 extra Antec 80mm case fans the usual floppy drive Any suggestions/ideas are appreciated! Share this post Link to post
jmmijo 1 Posted January 30, 2004 It could be the power supply however you need to look at a possible motherboard issue as well. Why, cause you really can't rely on the system monitor for very accurate readings, they are good general sensors but the way to really make sure is to get a good quality volt meter, Flukes are really accurate and then read from a ground lead to one of the +5vdc leads and monitor this while running an app like 3D Mark to really tax the system. Since there are multiple power rails including +12/-12vdc you should monitor these as well. When looking at the voltage at the ATX power connector, this is the output from the PS unit. There are a number of voltage regulator circuits on the motherboard as well and if one or more of these circuits is failing this can cause anomylous behavior like random lockups. If you notice the voltage dropping at the main ATX power connector then I would indeed suspect the PS, however Antec makes some very good supplies, just like Enermax, but of course these are man made products so anything is prone to failure at some point Share this post Link to post
Mekadave 0 Posted January 30, 2004 Thanks for the suggestion. Do you know where I can find any guides on how to use a volt meter? I've never laid eyes on a VM in my life. We've always tossed suspect power supplies at all the jobs I've had. It was never worth our time to test them. Share this post Link to post
jmmijo 1 Posted January 30, 2004 In this case it maybe worth it, however if you have access to another PS then I would try that out first to see if the readings you're getting from the monitor are about the same or different. As for the VM, these are so easy to use, they all have digital displays now, although some really good ones will still have some analog display meters instead Anyway, just set the range for something like 25~50vdc, not AC as most VOM's will also test AC. The black probe you just touch one of the black colored wires going into the main ATX connector on the motherboard and the red probe will touch one of the red colored wires. Now if you look at how the wires go into the connector you'll see you can wedge each probe into the same hole as the wire, just don't press to hard but firm to make contact with the actual metal contact, usually something like a brass/gold plated type connector. You'll see different colors in this connector as well, some are +12vdc power rails and you should be able to read these with the same range on the VOM as the +5vdc. Share this post Link to post
Mekadave 0 Posted January 30, 2004 Thanks, I'll give that a shot. I found an inexpensive multimeter on ebay that looks decent. The Flukes looked REALLY nice, but I don't have $150 to spend on the multimeter and still replace whatever hardware is going bad. ;( I have a suspect power supply that I've been wanting to test, too. Ok, silly question. Can I test a power supply that isn't hooked up to a motherboard, or does it need to be hooked up and running? Share this post Link to post
jmmijo 1 Posted January 30, 2004 Quote: Ok, silly question. Can I test a power supply that isn't hooked up to a motherboard, or does it need to be hooked up and running? There are some ATX PS testers out there however they still only do a static test, PS's will and can behave differently under load so it's best to actually have the machine turned on and an OS running with something in the background that really taxes the system, like 3D Mark for Windows. I'm sure there are similar things for Linux as well Share this post Link to post
Mekadave 0 Posted January 30, 2004 Quote: Quote: Ok, silly question. Can I test a power supply that isn't hooked up to a motherboard, or does it need to be hooked up and running? There are some ATX PS testers out there however they still only do a static test, PS's will and can behave differently under load so it's best to actually have the machine turned on and an OS running with something in the background that really taxes the system, like 3D Mark for Windows. I'm sure there are similar things for Linux as well Cool, much thanks! I'll give it a shot. Hopefully the multimeter will get here soon. Share this post Link to post
