12v rail and IC7

N

NoVo

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 18, 2002
Messages
110
My 12v rail is dropping from 11.80v to 11.68v while under Prime95 stress. I'm starting to wonder if my power supply is going bad. My power supply is an Antec TP430. Other devices:

2.4c @ 250fsb 5:4
2x512mb Corsair 3500c2 @ 2.8v
Audigy 2 in PCI slot 3
3COM NIC in PCI slot 4
Radeon 9800xt (not overclocked)
1 SATA WD Raptor (Boot drive)
1 PATA WD SE (IDE 1 Master)
1 Pioneer DVD-106 (IDE 2 Master)
1 Plextor 16/10/40 (IDE 2 Slave)

Has anyone had problems with their 9700/9800 in-line with other devices. I've read that isolating the 9800 on its own power lead can be beneficial. Right now, I have 2 HDD, 2 80mm fans and my 9800xt on the same power lead.

Any help appreciated, as I am getting random reboots while playing graphic intense games. My main concern is the 12v rail dropping to 11.68v.
 
My antec 550 was crap too, 11.55 on the 12v on my system, the more you OC the lower it goes.

Using a fortron now and no problems, Half the price of the overpriced antec 550.

And all 3 rails are adjustable on the Fortron.
 
Trust me... the motherboard is lying to you.

I have a Vantec Stealth 520... well known for having strong rails, and my IC7-MAX3 tells me my 12v idles at 11.98 and dips down to 11.68v under load.

Now, mind you... it's been proven that a 5% drop makes little difference in overclocks, I was still worried.

SO... I purchased a nice multimeter and plugged it into the 12v on one of my molex plugs.

What do you know? The multimeter tells me my 12v line idles at 12.18 and only dips down to 12.02v under load.

I have talked with several other IC7 owners who get the EXACT same results. MBM5 or AbitEQ tells them their 12v is at 11.68v, but when they check with a multimeter it is indeed 12v or higher.

ABIT obviously made mistakes when they were putting together the IC7 series. The VDIMM problems, the VTT problems, the undervoltage of the CPU's, the multiplier problems, and now, how the board reports the 12v line.

It's a big board of mistakes.

Anyhow... I'd be willing to bet quite a bit of dough that your 12v line is just fine and your mobo is lying.

As for random reboots... means two things 99% of the time. Your CPU is overheating... or, MOST likely, your RAM is overclocked too high and the machine crashes because of it.

Run two instances of Prime95 for 24 hours. Most likely you'll find one of the two fail, if so, slow down your overclock.
 
The IC7 measures such low voltages no matter what PSU you have. I have the same measured values with a 460-W Enermax.
 
Winbond measures voltages on the board, and it's probably right. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with your power supply though. It's probably putting out good voltage, just the regulation on the board will have trouble keeping up sometimes.

And to find out your problem I recomend a few loops of the newest version of memtest. Failure's in test 1-4 indicate you need to slow down the cpy and/or push the voltage higher. Failures in other tests indicate you need loosing timings and/or the memory needs to be run at a lower speed. Keep in mind even good memory can give trouble running at it's rated speeds at anything other than 1:1 on Intel dual channel boards. If you can pass an hour or so of memtest looping then boot into windows and try some load testing (prime 95 etc) to make sure your temps stay in line. And lastly run something that works the 3D card intensively for a few loops to make sure there's no problem with the video card. Or just play some intense gaming. ;)
 
Set your memory timings manually and not "By SPD"
Should cure your random reboots.
My IC7-G has a low 12v rail also according to MBM5.
 
Im running a IC7 on a Vantec 520W, Rails never dip below 11.9 for me. It idles around 12.2 or so. I rma'd my first Vantec 520 due to low rails and Vantec sent me a new one with adjust pots to give plenty of voltage to all rails.
 
Do ABIT boards produce or just read voltages lower than other board manufacturers? I ask this because if ABIT boards are only reading the voltage as being lower, then adjusting a pot on your PS to increase voltage, could potentially damage your components.

Also, NEXX - I am in awe after noting your DDR2700 is running at 207MHz. Although stable, I think I am approaching my 3500c2's limits when I clock them around 214. That's some awsome ram chips you have. Right now I'm running my IC7/2.4c @ 5:4 mem ratio. Proc clocked at 250, and memory at 200, and it is the most stable OC I can obtain @ default VCORE. Also, mem timings are 2,7,3,3.
 
Originally posted by NoVo
Do ABIT boards produce or just read voltages lower than other board manufacturers? I ask this because if ABIT boards are only reading the voltage as being lower, then adjusting a pot on your PS to increase voltage, could potentially damage your components.

Also, NEXX - I am in awe after noting your DDR2700 is running at 207MHz. Although stable, I think I am approaching my 3500c2's limits when I clock them around 214. That's some awsome ram chips you have. Right now I'm running my IC7/2.4c @ 5:4 mem ratio. Proc clocked at 250, and memory at 200, and it is the most stable OC I can obtain @ default VCORE. Also, mem timings are 2,7,3,3.
Click to expand...

They have Winbond BH6 chips (no heatspreaders cause the valueline versions) . Running 2-3-2-7 max v-dimm IC7 supports. Cpu-Z reports the exact speed at 212.9MHz almost 426MHz DDR. Wow! I need to update my sig :D
 
I have an Antec true Power 550 watt and a IC7

and i get alarms in MBM5 cuz of my low voltages on all my rails...

plus, under heavy load, it restats... my temps are great too... so...
 
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