Voltage problem?

I have been having temperature issues with my computer for some time, due to a dead chipset cooler on my motherboard. For that reason, I've been cooling it with a fan/window AC unit (that combo cools it a lot!) for some time, and monitoring the temperatures with Asus PC Probe. Today, I finally got a new motherboard, CPU, and new RAM, and so rebuilt my computer half-way. I have it all up and running again, and I've been running PC Probe just for kicks. However, I've noticed that fairly frequently PC Probe now pops up an error telling me that my +3.3 voltage is too low. I know very little about PSU stuff, so I don't know if I should be worried or not. I've read that it could just be a less-than-accurate motherboard reading, however this never happened until today (and I've been using PC Probe constantly for weeks). However, I have also changed the motherboard today, so that could be the issue (new, less accurate sensor?)

Thus, I am at a loss, and would love some guidance from someone on this. I have not yet tested the computer under load, but I will be doing that now. I'll post back with results later. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

What does your +3.3 voltage say?

 

Firstly you need to confirm it with another program:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

The best program I have found to date which will plot "overtime" all of your temps/volts and stability is:

OCCT 3.1.0 .

Go into options and tick/add all the measures you want. A 10min run is a good indicator of what is going on and a 1 hour run gives you a stability. It will let you assess you vDropp, 12V ripples, etc etc.

 

Ok, I've run a 10 minute power supply test using OCCT. It told me that the test was completed without errors. It also generated some nice graphs, however I have no idea if they represent good or bad news. Is a "no error" test with this software indicative of no power issues? Or are the graphs also important to look at?

 

Well look at the other graphs on CPU temps etc and what are they indicating?

What is your CPU temp?

 

The CPU never got above 49 C, apparently. It is a quad-core, so there are four graphs, and each looks the same.

Oh, and I've left WoW running in the background for at least half an hour now with no issues (aside from numerous warnings from PC Probe, also regarding the 12V and even the CPU fan a couple of times)

When it warned me that the CPU fan had dropped to 0 RPM, I looked at it and it was chugging away. When I looked back at the monitor, however, it was back to a normal reading.

 

It seems it's time to "test" PCProbe. Shut everything else down and have Everest running (sensors) and OCCT for 10 mins, you can also select your CPU fan rpm's in options. Are they showing "similar results" as PC Probe? you may have a fan dying.

 

Well, PC Probe has since never mentioned the CPU fan. The OCCT test completed without any errors. One time during the test, PC Probe warned me that my 3.3 voltage was at 2.96, and at that time EVEREST said it was at 3.33-3.34 (I watched it for the next several seconds to be sure that it wasn't just updating more slowly).

Oh, and I just added this CPU/heatsink/fan out of the box today. So it had better not be dying.

 

I did finally see EVEREST report a 2.96 +3.3 voltage at one point last night.

Also, I played Assassin's Creed for a while, and I had no issues. Is this good news?

 

Thanks for the link, going to check this out.

 

It sounds pretty good. As you can see from the graphs plotted using OCCT many of the voltages will oscillate (go up and down) with usage. The difference between a good quality PSU and poor quality is how great the oscillation is and thus reliable power delivery, i.e. a poor quality unit will display "greater" oscillation during load and thus not deliver "consistent" voltages and possibly cause system crashes. Good quality less oscillation. Finally, under options in OCCT make sure all of the right voltages are matching up.

Personally I never thought much off Asus PCProbe and believe there are a lot of "far superior" monitoring apps available. You now have 2 of my favourites.

 

Thanks for the assistance.

I've installed Windows 7 Professional x64, and I'm loving it so far. I mention that to say that I've done quite a lot with this machine since my last post, and still no problems. I've installed Win7, played with it for hours, played WoW some more, and played Left 4 Dead for an extended period of time. So this is all looking good!

 

Good to hear, looking at getting Win7 as well.