Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

PSU Tester - Recommendations?

Options
  • 08-12-2010 5:00pm
    #1
    fasty
    Registered Users Posts: 981 ✭✭✭


    I'm having some PC issues and after a lot of troubleshooting, I've narrowed the problem down the the motherboard or PSU, so I'd like to check the PSU.

    Rather than connect a multimeter to the PSU somehow to test it under heavy load, i.e. gaming, I was wondering if there was something I could connect between the motherboard and the ATX connector to measure voltage and amps while the machine is in use.

    Any recommendations?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Maj Malfunction
    Registered Users Posts: 194 ✭✭Maj Malfunction


    Is the PSU simply overloaded?

    If you have a couple of harddrives/CDROM drives & dual-gfx cards your going to need a decent high quality PSU to keep all that stuff running. How old is the PSU?


  • Options
    #3
    fasty
    Registered Users Posts: 981 ✭✭✭fasty


    Nah, I've got a stock speed i7 860 a single SATA2 HDD and a Radeon HD4890 all running off a Corsair 650W PSU and the system had been running perfectly for hours and hours for over 12 months before starting to act the maggot.

    Prime95 stress tests and Memtest all passed, clean installs of Win7 with different drivers all caused the same issue and it's only when the videocard starts drawing power on top of all the rest of it.

    Problems include hard locks and spontaneous reboots that aren't BSODs and a few actual BSODs.


  • Options
    #4
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    Could be either PSU or the card itself :o


  • Options
    #5
    Maj Malfunction
    Registered Users Posts: 194 ✭✭Maj Malfunction


    Memtest/WIN7/Prime95 both stress test the CPU & RAM and coming up with a clean bill of health.

    If I was a betting man, I'd stick my money on the PSU as the root cause of the issues your having, and its the cheaper of the two to replace.

    Only other thing I'd check before spending any cash is to ensure the GFX card fan and heat sinks are clean and not full of dust/fluff.

    Personally I would prefer a 700-750W PSU. PSU's degrade with age and what started out at 600W may now be only operating at 500-550W after a year or so.


  • Options
    #6
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    Decent caps don't really age that fast unless placed under extreme stress (>90% of max output), run 24/7 at over 70%, or both.

    That system would barely hit the preferred 50% load mark when gaming - and with HT on to boot! :p


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Curry Addict
    Registered Users Posts: 1,274 ✭✭✭Curry Addict


    id start with reseating your graphics card.
    clean out your fans.
    check your psu connectors for browning and reseat them all.
    check your gpu and cpu temps.
    then start worrying about psu and mobo etc.


  • Options
    #8
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Occt has a psu test


  • Options
    #9
    challengemaster
    Registered Users Posts: 16,930 ✭✭✭✭challengemaster


    Have you tried stressing the system with something like 3dmark11 or the likes?


  • Options
    #10
    fasty
    Registered Users Posts: 981 ✭✭✭fasty


    Curry Addict wrote: »
    id start with reseating your graphics card.
    clean out your fans.
    check your psu connectors for browning and reseat them all.
    check your gpu and cpu temps.
    then start worrying about psu and mobo etc.

    I've done all of that but didn't mention it because I was looking for info on PSU testers!

    I'll have a look for swollen caps on the GPU, mobo and PSU though.
    challengemaster wrote: »
    Have you tried stressing the system with something like 3dmark11 or the likes?

    I was actually thinking about this and had decided to try Furmark. That thing really stresses GPUs!


  • Options
    #11
    AengusMB
    Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭AengusMB


    Apparently any hardware you need to measure amps costs upwards of €1000,
    It'd be no harm to check the voltages with a multimeter like you mentioned anyway, it's a simple job, and i've never heard of any damage being done
    (Again, just what i've read from an assortment of google searches over the last while, i'm no expert.)

    Unless you've already checked, in which case, my bad.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    fasty
    Registered Users Posts: 981 ✭✭✭fasty


    I'm comfortable enough with electronics so I'll try with a multimeter, then.

    Just as an update, I reseated EVERYTHING again. RAM, Video, All power connections and compressed air'd the **** out of the thing and ran Furmark at 1920*1200 for 2 hours which got the GPU up to a toasty 82*C and it didn't cause a single problem!

    I'll have to try some games over the weekend and see how I go.

    Computers...

    EDIT:

    Something else I noticed when running a few little graphics demos I've written and writing a few shaders in RenderMonkey: I could hear a chirping from the machine when it's displaying 3D graphics that would normally be drowned out by the fan noises. My card is by Sapphire and has a two year warranty, I wonder if it's worth the hassle and downtime of trying to RMA it?


Advertisement