PSU readings help please?

Can anyone part with any knowledge on the readings below from Mother Board Monitor 5?

I'm somewhat concerned that my PSU is not exactly performing well. Having posted here in relation to BSOD's occuring frequently.

Memtest 86+ & MS Mem Test both report fine... at least 10 times over.

Direct X = fine

Results taken at interval of 1 second during playing of Rome Total War (the great BSOD deliverer :mad: )

Low-High Log:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Total number of readouts: 626 CPU Speed: 2203 MHz |
|Running from: 09/04/2005 19:30:14 until: 09/04/2005 20:13:48 |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor | Current | Low | High | Average |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Case......................... 30° C | 24° C | 31° C | 29° C |
|CPU Socket................ 48° C | 42° C | 49° C | 47° C |
|Core 0....................... 1.71 V | 1.66 V | 1.78 V | 1.72 V |
|Core 1....................... 1.71 V | 1.66 V | 1.76 V | 1.72 V |
|+3.3.......................... 3.36 V | 3.30 V | 3.38 V | 3.35 V |
|+5.00........................4.95 V | 4.84 V | 4.97 V | 4.91 V |
|+12.00.......................11.98 V | 11.92 V | 12.10 V | 12.02 V |
|-12.00....................... -12.51 V | -12.45 V | -12.64 V | -12.55 V |
|-5.00........................-5.25 V | -5.22 V | -5.30 V | -5.27 V |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+


The ones that concern me most at first glance are those in red since they seem to fluctuate rather too much.
I'm still getting BSOD's, and have done lots of memory testing - all ok, lots of Driver testing - all ok AFAIK.

If I need a PSU it's gonna need to be reliable, and thereby expensive, so I want to make sure I'm not replacing the wrong component.

My Seagate SATA dies in January, I replaced it with a WD Caviar whilst waiting (endlessly) for Overclockers to respond to my RMA request. They took 10 weeks to respond to 9 faxes and 32 unanswered calls before kindly..... allowing my return only to send me a new one I don't need!

@ £65 out of pocket already, I don't need another £50 on a PSU that I don't need.... albeit its starting to look like I do! :(

Anyone know anything about PSU's then?

The 3V, 5V, 12V voltage level is within standard, 3% off indicates it should be a low-mid range PSU.

Your CPU voltage seems to dip a bit too low. You could try increasing the CPU voltage by a slight bit and that may help with the BSOD.

Your temperature is a bit odd though. Case temperature should not fluctuate that much.

"slight bit"?

That might require some definition, plus if the PSU (Antec Smartpower 350) is not up to it in the first place, won't the extra demand make it worse?

Would it help observations if I monitor the voltages prior to launching anything? It might not be out of range, but what about that fluctuation? When I watch the dashboard CPU voltage goes up and down like Yo-Yo :eek:

Ignore case temp, I ran the test about 30 minutes after boot, thus the test started down at 24° and quickly rose to a normal gaming temp of 31°..... never really gets hot.

Incidentally, when the games don't BSOD, they CTD with this:

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: 6

.. it appears to be an error that many people suffer from many different applications. Anyone got a clue what it is?

At present BF1942, RTW, Hidden and Dangerous all CTD or BSOD and favourite error code is this... :shocked2:


...and it doesn't always take a game to cause the BSOD, got one 5 minutes after boot last week.... idle desktop!

How about the rest of your rigs specs? That might help to daignose the issues.

Also run a multimeter off a molex and read them from there as software readings are crap and thats well known

Here we go... you'll need to advise me if I've missed something.

Dont have multi-meter handy at mo... so that'll need some time.

In meantime:

Athlon XP3200+
1GB Paired Corsair VS PC3200 DDR400
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe nForce2 DDR400
Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro
Sapphire Radeon 9600
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 120GB 1200JD SATA 8MB Cache
Antec SLK3700BQE
SmartPower 350 PSU
120mm Intake and Exhaust (Filtered)

Running NVidia Unified 4.27 although problems occur from 4.12 through 5.10
Running Rad Cat's 5.3

The Rad Cat's never seem to be the issue.
Can't use NVidia 5.10 as PC will not boot with disc in CDROM (?)
The Memory repeatedly tests fine (Memtest 86+ & Win Diag (MS MemTest))
All 3 DIMM slots tested with aforementioned using both sticks of RAM (All OK)
MoBo and Slots are clean of dust/dirt and are well seated.
Capacitators clean and clear.
PSU not overheating / Exhaust warm but not hot.
CPU Never above 46°
Case never above 33°

Usual error message when games crash is:

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: 6

BSOD's range from

No error just blank blue screen
DRIVER_IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
THREAD STUCK IN DEVICE DRIVER
Page fault in non-paged area
...and about another six or seven that dont spring to mind right now.

Having read, and read on the issues related to the error messages it aims at memory but the memory is fine. Leading me to think, and discuss on here before, the issue of the PSU.

Incidentally, the problems began after adding GPU, DVDRW, and stepping from Corsair VS PC3200 2 x 256 Kit, to 1GB kit.

DVDRW has no issues.

Put old MX440 in and still got the issues.

Memory:
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 512 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 200.4 MHz
FSB RAM 1:1
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 8 clocks
# of memory modules 1
Module 0 Corsair DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes X 2

BIOS:
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe ACPI BIOS Rev 1012

I've removed a stick this afternoon, and bar one CTD with error message above, all has run well - including 3 hour Rome Total War session since.

Is there something simple to use that will really work the PC over? Testing memory and CPU usage?

Add 0.025~0.05V to your CPU voltage, then Add 0.1V to your memory. That will not hurt the system. Some system tends to BSOD (with random error) if voltage is not enough to maintain stable operation.

You can try Prime 95 tortune test. Memtest only test your ram but not much of your CPU.

What is Prime 95 going to tell me?

I know the memory is ok, and if Prime crashes it, windows OCA will still probably blame a Device Driver....

I'm gonna find new PSU since the PC was fine last night with 1.675 running through CPU. Set it back to 1.65 this morning and 'dumph'....BSOD.

The CPUZ shows a jumpy fluctuation between 1.71 and 1.73 volts when set to 1.65, whereas when upped slightly it shows a much steadier 1.744 which moves much less, and even then only periodically moves to 1.76 and down again.

Off to E-Buyer.....

I can have a look if its a software problem for you. Go to c:\Windows\Minidump and put all the files from there in a zip file. Email it to me and ill try and debug them.

Hi Pudds,

The whole Voltage upping thing was clearly making the thing worse.

Prime ran a torture test for about an hour in the end before flaking, but in fairness, it also left me with a ****-load of bad hard drive clusters/sectors.... easily repaired.

3D Mark 2001 ran fine over and over, Juoni Vourno's CPU stability tester ran for about 2 hours without issue, and both the memory testing facilities were fine.

In the end - I grabbed this new cpu:

Tagan TG480-U01 480W ATX2.0 SLi Compliant Silent PSU

Reviews:

www.3dvelocity.com

www.hexus.net

Had no problems since, and certainly no BSOD's.... and thats with an extra SATA drive too!

Bit concerned at the 6° rise in temps tho..... need to reassess my cooling.

If anytihng occurs tho, I will fish out the minidump, thankyou for the offer, most grateful :)

no probs. BTW good choice of PSU there.

Yeah, was thrilled with it.

Clean, Well Built, and silent as hell!!! Had to check if it was working last night - can't hear a damn thing.

Hell of a lot of cable tho, even in my case, wouldn't want one of these in a smaller tower.

Fixed.

PSU upgrade reduced BSOD to minimal amount. CTD still common. Replaced the Memory today and issue gone.

Memtest & WinDiag fine.

Prime running sweetly!

Ta to those who gave the love!