Possible PSU problem.

I have just started having a lot of lock ups while playing WoW that force me to reset my computer, and I'm trying to figure out what is causing them. At the moment I want to rule out the PSU, are there any programs that display the voltages of the PSU rails? Maybe then I could post the results on here and someone would be able to tell me if that it is the PSU causing the problems.

Thanks

There are few programs that test the voltages on your rails but they are ALL very unreliable and only give a ball park figure. When you need +/- 5% regulation thats no good.

Get yourself a DMM and check manually to be sure.

Also, please post the spec/model of the PSU involved.

Lastly, what kind of temperatures are your GPU or CPU getting to under load?

Thanks for the reply :)

PSU is a Modstream 520w around a year old, maybe a little more.

I've not really been into the hardware side of computing for a couple of years now, could you please tell me a nice app for checking my GPU and CPU temps please.

A Modstream is a decent PSU and should be good enough for most systems (unless very high spec), so i doubt its that now.

What operating system are you using?
What are the full specs of your PC?

Its hard to give you a prgram to use without this as some are OS dependant (ie. 64bit Vista IIRC doesnt like much besides NVTune)

Full system spec:

Motherboard: Asus A8N SLI DLX
Processor: A64 XP3700+
Memory: 1GB 3200 corsiar
HDD Capacity: 160GB Seagate SATA
Graphics Card: X1950 XTX 512MB
Power Supply: OCZ Modstream 520W

32 bit XP pro.

Running Prime95 at the moment, has been running for the last 30 mins or so ok, will leave that going.

Thanks again

ATItool has good GPU temp monitoring, as well as a good stress test.

Speedfan can monitor other temps (and volts, roughly).

Try running orthos at the same time as ATI-tool.

I'll try ATItool again, I used to have it when I had my X850 XT PE, buy when I installed my new gfx card it said it was not combatible with ATitool.

I take it if it's running prime95 for any length of time ok, that it's not a PSU problem.

Also forgot to say that everything is running at stock.

Is it just while playing that game it happens ? :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trash Man

I take it if it's running prime95 for any length of time ok, that it's not a PSU problem.

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I wouldn't get that conclusion - prime95 stresses one core.. and CPUs aren't very demanding of the PSU these days given they usually have a rail all to themselves. It's more likely that stability problems are caused by the supply on the rail to the graphics card, hence testing ati tool in conjuction with orthos (both cores and ram).

ATi tool works fine on my card.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Colossous

Is it just while playing that game it happens ? :confused:

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Nope, it locked up in the same way when I was installing prime95 this morning.

Prime95 has been running for about 2 and a half hours so far ok.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I wouldn't get that conclusion - prime95 stresses one core.. and CPUs aren't very demanding of the PSU these days given they usually have a rail all to themselves. It's more likely that stability problems are caused by the supply on the rail to the graphics card, hence testing ati tool in conjuction with orthos (both cores and ram).

ATi tool works fine on my card.

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I'm a bit out of touch with stuff at the moment. I'll grab ATitool again and othos and give it ago.

EDIT: Do I need Orthos if I only have a single core CPU, will prime95 do that same thing otherwise?

EDIT:2 OK, I'm running the Show 3D view on ATitool and prime95 at the same time, how long do you think I need to leave it? The crashes were happening after only a few minutes playing wow.

Ah didn't notice you have a single core - prime is probably ok then, I don't know how thorough it is on ram.

That you can survive any amount of prime95 + ATi tool indicates it's not a critical power issue - no way will WoW require more power/use more heat than that combination. I think it's most likely to be a software issue.

Memtest86 could be used to check RAM thoroughly too.

I have just stopped the ATItool and Prime95 from running and after nearly 2 and a half hours the temps were CPU 42c and the GPU 66c.

So I don't think it's an overheating issue.

I'm running Memtest86+ v1.70 at the moment, how long do I need to leave this running, or will it stop on it's own? It's done 1 test so far and that was a pass.

So by the ATItool test with prime95, have we ruled out that it is a PSU or GFX card problem?

Could it be HDD issue?

Thanks again.

You said you got another lockup when you installed something this morning? Is it possible your hard drive has errors on it, try running a defrag, scandisk & chkdsk to rule that out.

Also if your drive supports S.M.A.R.T. testing, download the tool from the manufacturers website to check that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lucio

You said you got another lockup when you installed something this morning? Is it possible your hard drive has errors on it, try running a defrag, scandisk & chkdsk to rule that out.

Also if your drive supports S.M.A.R.T. testing, download the tool from the manufacturers website to check that.

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Thanks for the reply :)

I had 1 lockup when installing Prime95 yesterday morning, I also had 2 more yesterday afternoon that were out of WoW. Once when using MSN and another while browsing the web.

I ran defrag, chkdsk and the Seatool util this morning, and all went fine showing no errors, but I have a lockup about 3 minutes after Seatool had finished.

I'm going to reinstall windows today to see if that makes a difference.

From what I have tried so far, would you say I could rule out the PSU, GFX, Mem and HDD?

Thanks again.

Well the reinstall seems to have sorted things out :)

I'm going to slowly install all the stuff I had on before I had the problem to see if I can find out what the cause was, but I never installed anything new directly before the lockup's started happening.

Thanks to everyone who helped out :)