'nuff power?

[spicetek]

I'm using a 400W nexus 4090 silent PSU. Check out this snapshot of my voltages :-

I'm not sure what the acceptable tolerances for power rails are. Is 4.95v ok for 5v? What worries me most though is that I'm only getting 1.55/1.56 (varies) on the pumped up 1.6v vcore. I'm sure it used to manage a stable 1.6.

Any ideas whether some of my problems could be due to insufficient power? I did a wattage calculation a while back and the sums came up that 400W was more than enough power, but I'm not sure now. My specs are :

A64 3200+ @ 2.4ghz
1GB ram @ 220 2.5/3/3/something
6800GT 256MB @ 420/1.1 (load 80C!)
2x dvd writer
1x 74GB raptor
2x maxtor 200GB/300GB
audigy 2, misc lower power fans

Neither of the dvd writers produce good burns any more, they're ALL bad. The benq never used to be good with DVD-R, but now neither (benq and LG) works. I read somewheree dvd writer can be pretty sensitive to power issues - is that right?

Cheers.

 

[[Spectre]]

The spec is +/-5%. So if those values are real then they are in spec. Software cannot be trusted. If you are concerned get a multimeter and give them a looksy.

 

[Matrox462]

eh, I wouldn't worry about what software monitoring tools say. My motherboard came with a program that allows you to overclock and also monitor voltages/temps. Right now, it's saying my 12V is 11.350V, which is actually slightly over the 5% tolerance. I checked a while back using a multimeter, it ended up being more like 11.6V, which is better. I've never had a problem with stability.

 

[spicetek]

so you think the dvd problem isn't related to power then?

annoyingly this is the first time in years where i don't have a spare rig to test stuff out in. the most i can do is unplug a couple of hard drives and 1 dvd, see if it works then. but i'm still paranoid that i've got a dodgy power supply

 

[Matrox462]

so you think the dvd problem isn't related to power then?

annoyingly this is the first time in years where i don't have a spare rig to test stuff out in. the most i can do is unplug a couple of hard drives and 1 dvd, see if it works then. but i'm still paranoid that i've got a dodgy power supply

lol, I feel stupid, I didn't even see the part about the DVD drives not working at the bottom. I don't know how I missed that.

Anyways, I doubt it's a power issue, as you 12V appears to be perfectly fine. It could be a number of things. What type of discs are you using? The easiest thing to check would be to get ahold of a different type/brand of discs, and try them out. Maybe you have a bad batch, or if they're old, it's possible that they went bad over time. I mean, it's unlikely, but it *could* happen. Another possibility is a dirty lens. I'm not sure how you'd clean it, but I imagine you could just use some compressed air, or a cleaning kit to clean them. The fact that you said one drive wasn't good at burning discs, and now so is the other, might be a sign that it's dust accumulating over time. Also, you should even check the software you're using might have had a setting changed by accident. Go over all the settings, and even try burning at 1x and see if it makes a difference.

Good luck

edit: I thought of one more thing. Make sure there's no programs running in the background that's using up excessive RAM/CPU cycles. I think most newer drives have built in technologies to prevent bad discs due to buffer issues, but still, make sure nothing CPU/RAM intensive is running while burning.