ViRuS2k

Real Spesifications.

+5V ! 1.5A ! 40.0A ! +5% ~ -5% ! 50mV

+12V ! 0.2A ! 18.0A ! +5% ~ -5% ! 120mV

- 12V ! 0.0A ! 0.8A ! +10% ~ -10% ! 120mV

- 5V ! 0.0A ! 0.3A ! +10% ~ -10% ! 100mV

+5Vs ! 0.0A ! 2.0A ! +5% ~ -5% ! 50mV

+3.3V ! 0.3A ! 30.0A ! +5% ~ -5% ! 50mV

==========================

Readings from my system.



I would realy like to know what could be sucking the life out of my 5+ rail
its causeing my games to freeze infact its causeing my system to freeze aswell

i dont get it im not running enough things to drag the rail down why arent the others behaveing like this one
2 hdd`s
1 graphics
1 sound
5 case fans
1hsf
2 DDR sticks
3 Drives
1 Floppy

thats about it

i dont have the equipment aswell to test the rails in a newb in that department lol

dipstick

I would not worry about it unless you get those readings from a multimeter. Mobo readouts are a joke at best.

ViRuS2k

dipstick mate my games are crashing though :/ system freezes ect

then what happens is HIGH PICHED SCREEM from my sound card :/

GutterPunk

what are the watts on ur psu? also, are you overclocking any?

this is prolly best in technology discussion/support

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swimtech

It's a little time consuming, but...

Take the cover off your case and remove the power connectors from all your non-necessary internal drives and disconnect any external drives too. Then take a reading like you just did to establish a base set of voltage readings for your "basic" system, which should now consist of your mainboard, CPU, all your fans, memory, installed cards, and the boot hard drive.

The voltage on your 5v should come up. If not, then the power supply may be weak, the memory may have a problem, the mainboard might be defective, or the boot hard drive has a problem - likely in that order. Run your unit that way though to see if it still freezes - your monitoring software might be reporting badly as dipstick mentioned (I don't respect it's accuracy, but a good change should show up on the 5v rail)

If the voltage does come up, reconnect each drive one at a time and test after each drive you reconnect - you should see a large difference after you reconnect one of them - that would be the culprit.

If you don't see a large difference after all these steps, please post back and we'll think about this some more...OK?

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MIG-31

moved to Technology Discussion & Support forum.

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ViRuS2k

Jeantech 500w PSU twinFan ?

and mate this problem happens overclocked or optimal. :/

ViRuS2k

I will do all what you said and reply back some time tonight hope your still awake lol

btw in the bios on boot even with everything overclocked and all hardware installed ect the 5+v reading is 5.104v
now when i hit windows it drops to 4.36-8v :/

something is draining it between bootup to windows. i just gotta figure it out
stay with me lol

ViRuS2k

thx bud

ViRuS2k

well guys i figured out my sound card was on

agp
pci (graphics card)
pci2
pci3
pci4 (sound card)
pci5

i think movied my sound card so it would then use its own IRQ instead of shairing ect like this

agp
pci (graphics card)
pci2
pci3 (sound card)
pci4
pci5

seems to have fixed the crashing well its not crashed yet so thats good news isnt it....
im still going to strip the system down and follow what swimtech said

in the bios its showing 5+v @ 5.210v fluctuating from 5.110 - 5.210v ect
but by the time i get to windows it goes way down to 4.380v and i cant point out why its doing this if its already useing the power in the bios ect.

any more tips from people i can get would be good cheers.

swimtech

Hey ViRus2K!

If you've got the freezing fixed, I wouldn't bother with the voltage troubleshooting - honestly... The Windows voltage monitor softwares are not accurate. What I was suggesting would have looked for a change in the reading - regardless if the reading was accurate - it would be the change that matters. The Bios information is highly likely the more accurate of the two readings you are getting - and aren't all your drives spinning by the time you read that voltage figure? If so, your rails actually look good.

Unless you want to experiment, as a test of component loads and/or the monitoring software itself...

I'll be out 'til tomorrow afternoon at the earliest...

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ViRuS2k

well mate i think the problem has returned

i think my PSU is ready for dieing the stability of my system is shot to hell lol
i know im makeing a joke out of it but im seriously sick , dont know how im going to afford a new one anytime soon i cant even play any games now

windows seems stable enough but gameing is shot to hell.

i even removed a DVDROM drive no it was a CDR drive and it didnt even dent the 4.35v 5+v rail didnt move one bit.....

other than striping the system down i dont know what else to try

ohh well i will plutter on and try other things if i can think of anything else to try

anyone else got any tips as i dont know what else to try other than a complete strip and that may not fix it either. :/

WisMerHill

mmm other basic tip:

have you cleaned it recently ? dunno how long you have it in there but it might be clogged with dust, so its heating up and becomes unstable.

Oh and is your powerconnection grounded ? if not try to hook up a piece of electrical wire between your pc case and a grounded point like the central heating radiotor.

^^ most basic i could think off.

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Matth

I had a no-name PSU with a 5v that faded in Windows - and it gave me complete blackouts.

If you chack it the moment it boots, is it as low then, and if you end a Windows session, and immediately go back to BIOS and check it there, what's it like?

It's possible that the BIOS sensor calibration is accurate, and the software is not - I know one of my temp sensors has a 10C variance between BIOS and MBM.

It sounds like the PSU is not trustworthy.

ViRuS2k

Yeah in the bios 5+v reads 5214v in windows 4.35v reboot to bios back to 5214v

something is causeing the instability and i cant point out if its the psu or something else !

and about the grounded ishue i will try this out.

swimtech

Yes, bummer...

Sounds like your PSU is going away...

You could borrow a known good one and swap it with yours - wouldn't take very long either.

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ViRuS2k

yeah mate it sounds like it is
i still have yet to try your mothod though of striping down to essensials lol

i will give that a try very soon and report back asap to let ya know whats happening other than that i dont know what the cause is

if i need to get a new PSU i dont know if i will be able to i have no money at the moment and dont know when i will get the funds for a £100+ pounds PSU though i will carry on and see whats happning.

let you know soon mate.

swimtech

Cool, and maybe the decreased load will let you run it for a bit until you can obtain a new supply...

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ViRuS2k

yeah mate hopefully

im going to remove a CDRW drive and take out my Audigy ZS graphics card and use the Onboard Soundstorm.

can you tell me what takes the drain on the 5+v line of a psu ?

becuse if im going to remove stuff it will probably take it off the 12+v line instead ???????

my motherboard uses the 12v aux cable on the motherboard. that goes from the psu

now i found something out if i boot normal and go into the bios with the 12v aux connected then my 12+v is at 12.22v and my 5+v is 5.214v

now if i remove the Aux 12v cable from the psu and boot up then the readings are the same but the 12+v has droped to 11.989v ??????????

i wonder why this happens ??????

i need to know what to remove that will make the 5+v line grow lol

swimtech

Primary draws on the 5v line are: Memory, firewire devices, drives (optical and hard drives), motherboard, and usb devices in that approximate order (highest draw to lowest).

But be aware, for most mass market type power supplies, the rails are regulated separately but share a common source, so a draw on the 12 volt line could affect the 5v line and vice versa... Also, higher current draw approaching the limit of a particular power supply voltage rail will tend to lower its measured voltage - regulation is never perfect. That might explain the lowered voltage on the 12v rail with the Aux power disconnected - the supply is trying to give the same amount of power on one line instead of "making it more even" across two separate lines so the voltage looks to be sagging lower (slightly...).

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ViRuS2k

ahhh i se what you mean

ok i will let you know what happens when i get around to stripping the system down one thing at a time

i also have something to show you that i found out tonight i will post the pictures later.

cheers for the help so far mate.

ViRuS2k

swimtech mate here is the picture i wanted to showyou , something is weird about it
one program is 3rd party the other is gigabyte`s official easy tune 5 readings.

the top is 3rd and the bottom readings are from the official program.



whats weird about it is the fact that the official program readings are what im seeing in the gigabyte BIOS on boot in the pchealth section.

now the 3rd party program shows low 5+v readings.........

so i dont know what to make out of it all other than the fact the problems im getting may not be the cause of my psu :/

any other things i can cheak out it can only be between PSU/CPU/MEMORY. ??????

those readings are from how i have my system setup nothing striped out yet
but i plan on doing that when i can get a spaire second .............

what do you make out of it all :/

pr0digal jenius

the only thing i can suggest is to test the rails with a digital voltometer

Vampyromaniac

ditto . . . yet again.
check with a voltmeter, not software.

or just try swimtech's basic-system suggestion

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ViRuS2k

Just primed my system 8+ hours and no errors

so that rules out my memory and cpu right from being the problem ?

i dont know what else to try now that i have checked cpu and memory and railes from the official program and if i had a flakey PSU then wouldnt Prime95 fail considering it tourchers systems lol

as for the voltometer i dont have one :/
unless some one has one that will send me it and i will check and send them it back special delivery.

any more suggestions guys :?

btw thanks for all the tips so far.

ViRuS2k

Update from previous post;

that image above was done in prime95 tests called :Blend [Tests some of everything, Lots of Ram Used]
now it passed the test i had to stop the test when i woken up after 8+ hours.

now i have just done another test this time testing the CPU part i think

called in prime 95 : In Place Large FFT`s [Maximum heat, Power Consumption,Some Ram Tested]

and after 25-30 minutes i got a problem

[Fri Sep 17 14:34:19 2004]
Self-test 1024K passed!
[Fri Sep 17 14:40:14 2004]
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Possible hardware failure, consult readme.txt file, restarting test.
ERROR: ILLEGAL SUMOUT
Maximum number of warnings exceeded. 100 Warnings Detected.

sometimes prime95 does not even show the error it will quite the program like if you where playing a game and where to high overclocked it would sometimes quite the game when you where playing it and back to desktop ect

now i dont know what error ellegal sumout means all i do know is something of my hardware is flakey

here is what prime95 says about the error. :
POSSIBLE HARDWARE FAILURE
-------------------------

Could it be a software problem? If the error is ILLEGAL SUMOUT and you are
running Windows 95/98/Me, then there is some chance that this is a software
problem. A device driver or VxD may not be saving and restoring FPU state
correctly. Windows NT/2000/XP protects prime95 from bad device drivers.
In that case ILLEGAL SUMOUT is very likely a true hardware error. The good news
is that prime95 recovers very well from ILLEGAL SUMOUT errors. Try seeing
if the problem occurs only when a specific device is active or a specific
program is running.

--------------------------

Now im completely warped lol dont know what is going on im back to square one not knowing if its PSU/CPU/Memory ? i think i can rule out PSU now
and the first test i did was based heavely on RAM USED and it didnt fail had to stop after 8+hours ect now the other test erroring out seems to point me to a CPU hardware error could it be the CPU ???????

anymore tips guys ?

cheers becuse im plucking at straws here ;o

swimtech

I hope you're not overclocked now doing these tests - if so, cut it back to default and run the Fast Fourier Transform test again to see. CPU's almost never fail - but gosh...

Yes, check your PSU with a meter - it could be that the voltage is not stable - your software is taking a snapshot of the voltage, with a meter you can leave the meter probes in the holes (5v = red, 12v = yellow, ground = black) of a hard drive power connector and monitor the voltage over time...

As a test of memory (which I would suspect more, or at least check more...) try looping Memtest86 available here (get the .iso that makes a bootable CD):

http://www.memtest86.com/

Admittedly, unless you have components to swap, starting with the power supply, intermittent problems like this are difficult to get a handle on... Gotta gather more information - sorry this is so drawn out for you...

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ViRuS2k

i will give the memtest a shot later tonight
also those test above where done with my system reverted to practitly default settings....

only thing overclocked was the cpu 2500+ @3200+ settings so it would run my DDR at 400Mhz 3200 DDR.

i bumped the vcore up to compensite for the little overclock
though i have had this cpu up as far as 210fsb/2.31ghz 3500/3600+ rateings.

so reduceing it to 3200+ does not strain the system and putting the fsb down from 210 to 200 is good aswell.......

i have in the past run the cpu much higher with no flaws so reduceing it this much shouldnt give errors right ?

as for a volometer do you know anyone in the UK that has one that would send me to test my system with and i will post it back to them ASAP after i have tested my voltages. i cant realy afford anything at the moment im snaped.

i will let you know what happens tonight after i run mem test looping test 5 as its the hardest on the DDR of tests.

ViRuS2k

Hi mate i did the Fast Fourier Transform test again reduced clocks to dead default
and it passed the test i quite the test after 4 hours+ no errors

my windows OS does not freeze at all,
all games work apart from one game infact all games worked to begin with apart from one game i cant seem to get it to work no matter what even after reinstall after reinstall ect Richard Burns Rally freezes on my at the Profile Selection Menu

everything else works

so the only thing i can put the flakyness down to is the CPU
the psu seems fine i hope
all i have to do is run memtest 86 now wich i will do very soon though i cant see there being a problem with it as the prime95 test 2 does maximum FTT`s and heat transfer and Ram Used.

wish me luck though for the life of me no matter what i cant get richard burns rally working anymore it use to work so thats whats makeing me think there is something still far wrong ect

have there been reports of this game crashing / freezeing systems ect on teh profile screen right after the 2 intro`s ?

also anymore tips ?

cheers

swimtech

This has been a sticky one...

No faults except with the install of one game after dropping the system to default speeds... Still indicative of PSU, or memory, or CPU. All, and I mean all, the failures I've seen with a CPU have been catastrophic (dead machine) - but I don't have a lot of experience troubleshooting overclocked CPUs either... The intermittent and random failure mode in your unit doesn't seem like CPU to me. By the symtoms, it still seems most like PSU, as it is most likely to cause problems under stress and still be ok under a reduced load (you took away the overclock)... Do you notice any pattern at all to the failures?

Any further probs today ViRuS2k? Maybe do the Prime 95 torture test overnight (8 hours straight!), and see... And you've still got all your drives and so forth hooked up - right?

An overnight test - I can't think of much else without swapping components man... Could you borrow a meter from someone to monitor that supply? Several little picky things could still be causing the problem - they need to be eliminated, one by one, or confusion comes in...

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