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PSU Test

MaMMa

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Aug 11, 2004
Messages
6,778
I've been reading some threads under this PSU Category. I see a lot of people saying that their unit is solid and doesn't drop a volt/watt even on extreme load and all. I'm wondering how do you guys test this? Is there software or do you guys use the (forgive my newbness) black and red needle type thingies to measure?
 
MaMMa said:
I've been reading some threads under this PSU Category. I see a lot of people saying that their unit is solid and doesn't drop a volt/watt even on extreme load and all. I'm wondering how do you guys test this? Is there software or do you guys use the (forgive my newbness) black and red needle type thingies to measure?

motherboard monitor 5 have voltage monitors
 
I feel like a complete newb now, I've been using MBM5 for years totally looked right by it. thanks
 
The mobo monitoring stuff is crap when it comes to really seeing what the voltages are doing. You need a good multimeter to really tell what's happening. MBM can do an ok job it's it's not overly accurate to begin with, you need something outside of the computer circuitry to really measure it accurately.

I've got one with a min/max function on it and just hooked it into my PSU and started gaming away. Doing something like that should give a good idea of how much the voltages fluctuate. It's not necessarily how high/low it averages but but high and low it gets in the first place. If your 12V rail drops to 3V for even a fraction of a sec it's a bad sign.
 
There are different tools you can use... If you just want to measure voltages you can get a nice digital multimeter from ratshack.
 
diredesire said:
There are different tools you can use... If you just want to measure voltages you can get a nice digital multimeter from ratshack.
Yep, multimeters are available everywhere, home depot, walmart, harborfreight.com.

Also, monitoring software (mbm5) works much better if calibrated with readings taken from a multimeter.
 
Motherboard Monitor and other programs work great... but get a real multimeter and calibrate MBM first.
 
Thanks everyone, I'm going to get one as soon as I get the chance
 
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