CestusGW
02-04-2007, 03:24 PM
The rig:
AM2 X2 3800 (stock clocks)
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
XFX 7900GT (stock clocks)
2x512Mb DDR-2 667 (4-4-4-12)
LG DVD-RW drive
250Gb SATA HDD
Floppy Drive
Coolermaster Praetorian Case (4x80mm fans)
550W Modular PSU (Ultra X-2)
The problem:
Over the past few weeks, I've been having application crashes, and sometimes full hangups with increasing frequency (from once every few days to once or more per day). I pulled my system apart, checked all the connections, cleaned all the dust off everything (there wasn't much) and then things seemed to be going alright.
The crisis:
Then I had a system reboot and an error pop up in BIOS: The 12V source on my PSU was only providing 9.4V. I powered the system off, unplugged the DVD-RW drive and the floppy drive and all the fans, left the side panel off and powered the system back on. BIOS then showed 11.94V. Power off, add the DVD-RW drive back to the PSU, check again: 11.90V. Power off, add the case fans back to the PSU, check again: 11.90V. Finally, power off, add the floppy drive back to the PSU, check again: 11.84V. Ran a pass of memtest86 like this, no problems.
Next step:
Here's where I'm stuck. I've been reluctant to keep pushing my system (posting this from my laptop), but I'm not sure how to track down the problem from here. The way I see things, the problem could be:
A) PSU is flaking out, but not doing it consistently
B) Floppy drive, DVD-RW drive, fans are shorting, but not doing it consistently
C) Motherboard isn't reading voltage correctly, but not doing it consistently
How can I go about isolating the component in my system that's responsible for this?
AM2 X2 3800 (stock clocks)
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
XFX 7900GT (stock clocks)
2x512Mb DDR-2 667 (4-4-4-12)
LG DVD-RW drive
250Gb SATA HDD
Floppy Drive
Coolermaster Praetorian Case (4x80mm fans)
550W Modular PSU (Ultra X-2)
The problem:
Over the past few weeks, I've been having application crashes, and sometimes full hangups with increasing frequency (from once every few days to once or more per day). I pulled my system apart, checked all the connections, cleaned all the dust off everything (there wasn't much) and then things seemed to be going alright.
The crisis:
Then I had a system reboot and an error pop up in BIOS: The 12V source on my PSU was only providing 9.4V. I powered the system off, unplugged the DVD-RW drive and the floppy drive and all the fans, left the side panel off and powered the system back on. BIOS then showed 11.94V. Power off, add the DVD-RW drive back to the PSU, check again: 11.90V. Power off, add the case fans back to the PSU, check again: 11.90V. Finally, power off, add the floppy drive back to the PSU, check again: 11.84V. Ran a pass of memtest86 like this, no problems.
Next step:
Here's where I'm stuck. I've been reluctant to keep pushing my system (posting this from my laptop), but I'm not sure how to track down the problem from here. The way I see things, the problem could be:
A) PSU is flaking out, but not doing it consistently
B) Floppy drive, DVD-RW drive, fans are shorting, but not doing it consistently
C) Motherboard isn't reading voltage correctly, but not doing it consistently
How can I go about isolating the component in my system that's responsible for this?