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psu tester needed

No PSU tester you can get off of Newegg is particularly useful. They only check the PSU's voltages when it's in an unloaded state, which is not representative of what the situation will be like when it's powering an actual PC. Why do you want a tester?
 
A PSU tester is not going to help you identify the source of the problem. I can tell you that much right off the bat.

What are the full specs of the PC, and which PSU is being used?
 
im not in front of my pc so i dont know what the psu is. its pretty generic though, i dont think its brand name like corsair or thermaltake or anything.

amd athlon 64
asus socket 754
2gb ram
windows xp sp3

its pretty generic nothing really outstanding about the parts. i need to scan for viruses to make sure its not that.

so there is nothing to check to see if psu is providing enough power to the pc?
maybe its heat?
again, im only thinking out loud i dont know what the problem is
 
If it's generic then it certainly could be the problem, although I would suspect that it's more due to load than voltages going out of spec (the only thing a PSU tester tells you is whether or not the voltages are good). The only way to determine whether or not the PSU is the issue would be to buy or borrow a quality PSU to test the system with and find out if the issue still occurs with a good PSU.
 
ok
is there not a way to test whether the power supply is providing enough power to the pc?

i am getting ready to order a psu and also ram to test out. if anything i can always keep the psu and ram as backup so i dont mind putting in the order. thank you for the help
 
bluesmap said:
ok
is there not a way to test whether the power supply is providing enough power to the pc?
Click to expand...
Somewhat: If the voltages are of out of spec that generally means the PSU is either of low quality or being pushed too hard. With that said, to test specifically whether or not a PSU has enough amperage for a PC assuming that the voltages are in spec, you're gonna have to try another PSU.
 
As far as testing it . You could get a multimeter, plug the leads into a spare molex connector, load the computer using lin-x or prime, and check what the volatge does. If you go too far from 12v on the 12v line, under load, there's your problem. I think you can check 5v on the molex too. Same rules apply.

IIRC the ATX spec is 5% variation. So if you're getting 11.4-12.6, loaded, you're good to go.

This is by no means the most accurate test, but it will do you far better than a crappy $25 power supply tester. At least it tells you what's happening at load.

It won't pinpoint the issue, but it will tell you if voltage regulation is causing your instability.
 
Go to Best Buy, or some such place, & buy a higher rated supply than you have. If the problem does not persist, then buy a good PSU from 'egg & return the local one.
 
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