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Thread: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

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    digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    like, the motherboards we have all contain some form of diagnostic measurements in the bios, like voltages and temperature...they are invaluable for helping us to overclock our computers
    At the same time, motherboards come with alot of upgrading possibilities... Like almost every mobo now has intergrated audio and many people use a sound card, like because its better in every way, or something
    The built in voltage readings are prone to errors,as many of you may know... Why not apply the same idea of upgrading to reading voltages? Like , it isnt the same as adding a sound card to your computer or something... More like, the motherboard should have these things or places where you could touch with the needle points of your dmm, and get the voltage thats actually being fed into the cpu or ram or northbridge etc etc... Better yet, it should have like a connector which plugs into these points on the mobo on one end, and 2 holes to stick the dmm needles into on the other end, that way you always get access to the true voltage readings even if you already have everything installed in a case...

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    because of how these things work, its rarely a case of the 'step' the minimum change (delta) of the sensor been too wide, its normally a case of it not been calibrated well enough.

    If you really cared, most ultra-enthusiaste/serverboards have SMB headers exposed. This is just an I2C interface, you can easily take something like a low end 12 series PIC and make your own accurate voltage reader.

    Its just NO ONE, should care.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    If you really cared, most ultra-enthusiaste/serverboards have SMB headers exposed. This is just an I2C interface, you can easily take something like a low end 12 series PIC and make your own accurate voltage reader.
    but isnt that like, reading the output of the voltage sensor, rather than sensing the voltage itself?

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    no, thats sensing the voltage itself, and reporting it to the SMB.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    aahh... i get you now, i think...
    like, why cant motherboards have the points where people use to measure the voltage connected to a 2 pin header... so we dont need to solder our own wires to the motherboard or use those clip stand things to hold the dmm needles in place... like the point i was trying to make was that we use a dedicated external device, like the dmm, to measure the voltages, instead of reading the voltages from the computer

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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    Is there much use for a continuous accurate readout though?

    I'd have thought you can get all the information you need just by using a multimeter and testing the readout at your different conditions (eg, idle, load, idle->load transition).

    The only reason I can think you'd need a continuous readout is when you are monitoring for failure or something, which the inbuilt sensors are good enough for.

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    Re: digital multimeters as a tool for computer enthusiasts

    well you do have a point about the continuous readout thing, theres not really any need to keep a record of the voltages down to however much decimal points over the past however long... but to get the voltages in the first place requires us to find the correct points etc and somehow getting to them without shorting anything else out, if headers were provided for this purpose it could be a small selling point for the motherboard... well maybe motherboards can just have accurate voltage readings in the first place, and there would be none of this worry...but a voltage readout can be helpful on things like on a stick of ram, since ddr2 gets destroyed above 2.2v and some motherboards severely go over the voltage you set in the bios and then incorrectly read the voltages as something much lower, so reading the voltage independantly could act as a safety measure that everybody can be sure on

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