Help I am having PSU issues

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 8:13 pm

I just finished putting a computer together and it appears my PSU is to small according to the Bios monitoring software. I was have the following.

Tagan 480W PSU +3.3V@28A, +5V@48A, +12V@28A
MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" AMD Socket 939 CPU
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX-53
4 Sticks of Crucial Ballistix 512MB DDR PC3200 184-pin DIMM
Seagate 200GB 7200RPM Barracuda 7200.7 SATA Hard Drive
.3 amp Enermax Adjustable Speed 120mm Cooling fan
.14 amp Jamicon 120mm fan
.25 amp ZALMAN 80mm fan with Quiet Mode Adapter for CPU cooler
Thermaltake PIPE101 Model CL-P0006 for cpu cooler
Pioneer 108D 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW
MSI 6800GT graphic card
8 usb ports
2 1394 ports
On board audio
wireless mouse and keyboard

The Bios monitor software is telling me my I have the following. ~3.12v, ~5v, and ~11.68v. I have the exact same psu in my other computer and swapped it out and got the same results. So I am now in the market for a PSU that is larger than the 480w tagan and doesn't exceed 30dB any suggestions or ideas.

Dobby · Post by **Dobby** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 9:20 pm

Unless you have stability problems stop worrying and you should not need more powerful PSU. Voltage readings through motherboard can't be considered exactly accurate and that's most probably the reason.

alleycat · Post by **alleycat** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:59 pm

What you're worried about is voltage regulation, not power output. You do not need a higher-rated PSU. The ATX power specification allows +/- 5% for your +3.3V and 5V lines, and +/- 10% for your +12V line. I agree with Dobby's comments.

luminous · Post by **luminous** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 12:12 am

I would agree with the above. Don't get stressed about voltage readings from your mobo, they are not relliable. At full tilt your machine will be pulling about 250W. Your Tagan should have loads in reserve.

Fire up the machine, got the benchmarking software running in a loop and stability test.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 12:30 pm

Well I loaded up my game and within 10 min it shut me down.(

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 12:37 pm

probably something other than the psu - check your ram, cpu, gpu separately instead of all at once.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 12:38 pm

Test only with two sticks of RAM; try relaxed timings for the RAM. Be sure to use 2T command rate, if not set automatically/no option given.

Or better yet, run 24hrs (or as long as it goes) worth of Prime95 and Memtest86.

Cheers,

Jan

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:40 am

Something other than your PSU is shutting you down. Are you checking your temps? likely suspects are CPU and GPU. And also as suggested if your memory timings are too tight, a little heat might throw them off, though, I'd expect a BSOD than a shutdown in that case.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 5:18 pm

I am running auto timings and set up for my system at this time. My bios monitoring software reads 43c for the cpu and 23c for the case. I have tryed just 2 sticks in all the possiblities I can think of and I still shut down after an hour or so. No idea what BSOD is but when it shuts down I see a blue screen with text flash up trying to tell me something (can't read it since its only up for a second or so) then it shuts down and reboots. Reading around sounds like I over did the thermal paste so going to redo that and also swap out to anouther 480 tagan I have in my other computer.

surfed · Post by **surfed** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:04 pm

Make sure its not youre OS. Download any live linux cd (knoppix for example) and play some frozen bubble....I bet its Winblows thats shutting you down. Also do the mem-test. If you have lots of ram windows takes a while to fill it all. If youre temps are ok it cant be a thermal paste problem...

Spinner · Post by **Spinner** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:32 pm

oakdad wrote:when it shuts down I see a blue screen with text flash up trying to tell me something

That's a BSOD, a Blue Screen of Death. I had some IRQ conflicts a while ago and they ended like this.

You should be able to find out a few things about the BSOD by looking at the System Event log (Controol Panel>Administrative Services>Event Viewer>System).

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:43 pm

To make sure it's not the PSU, try a different PSU, if you can, and see if your box crashes in the same manner. Then you can eliminate the PSU as the problem. Next I would try the memory (try two sticks or even one stick like Jan Kivar said). Upgrade the BIOS if that is available.

Trying to eliminate all possibilities, while testing stability, disable Firewire, Parallel, Seriel, USB, etc. through your BIOS. Unplug your DVD-RW.

Run memtest86.

If the hardware seems fine, it may be a driver or software problem.

Do the Athlon FX's have Cool n' Quiet?

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:21 pm

Same thing with the other 480 tagan PSU I have here. I happened to be alt tabbing back and forth between my game and the bios monitoring software just before it crashed and had 55c for cpu and 39c for the case.
I will have to find me this memtest86 software I keep hearing about and run it tomarrow, just hope I don't need a floppy since I didn't bother putting one in this system.

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:44 pm

oakdad wrote:Same thing with the other 480 tagan PSU I have here. I happened to be alt tabbing back and forth between my game and the bios monitoring software just before it crashed and had 55c for cpu and 39c for the case.
I will have to find me this memtest86 software I keep hearing about and run it tomarrow, just hope I don't need a floppy since I didn't bother putting one in this system.

I believe it uses floppies. You might get away with a Boot CD ...

39c is fairly high for case temps. Try removing your side panel and see if that helps stability. See how the temps are with the side panel off.

luminous · Post by **luminous** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:48 pm

There is a memtest version that is an image that can be burned onto a CD. It makes a bootable CD so you do not need a floppy drive

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 3:44 am

Well this morning I went to see if I could find a log under services like mentioned above but there is no event viewer but there is a error reporting service and a event log. I go into them and there appears to be no log as to what is going on. Oh by the way I am running windows XP Pro if that matters.

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:07 am

oakdad, are you idling at 55c ?

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 4:49 am

oakdad wrote:Well this morning I went to see if I could find a log under services like mentioned above but there is no event viewer but there is a error reporting service and a event log. I go into them and there appears to be no log as to what is going on. Oh by the way I am running windows XP Pro if that matters.

Click Win-R, and type "eventvwr" (don't type the quotation marks..).

Cheers,

Jan

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 5:46 am

When doing nothing and just looking at the bios monitorying software I have ~43c cpu and ~23c case. The 39c case mentioned above was a typo was 29c.

Dobby · Post by **Dobby** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 7:37 am

oakdad wrote:When doing nothing and just looking at the bios monitorying software I have ~43c cpu and ~23c case. The 39c case mentioned above was a typo was 29c.

Temps seem to be normal. Have you tried if the system is stable running prime95/cpuburn ? That will create load only to processor and ram. And memtest was already suggested. After that you could try to remove some of the ram sticks and perhaps also other hardware which are not absolutely necessary and see if that helps.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 3:31 pm

Well according to the event viewer had a bunch of errors and they all are category 102 event id 1003 error code 1000000d1, parameter1 006d6dd0, parameter2 0000001c, parameter3 00000008, parameter4 006d6dd0. Now this means nothing to me but perhaps someone out there can enlighten me as to what it means.

surfed · Post by **surfed** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 3:41 pm

Search for "category 102 xp error" on google and you get lots of results. Most of them point to RAM errors or a driver issue. Again Google is youre friend.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 3:42 pm

Go to eventid.net and do a search to find what may be the cause of the error.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:20 pm

Sigh I can't seem to be able to figure out how to make a bootable CD for memtest86. Don't have a floppy since I was tol they where opsolete.( From anouther foram I did learn how to not instanlly reboot so I could see the bsod. It gave me the following.
Driver_IRQL_Not_Less_or_Equal
Technical information
stop:0x000000d1, 0x0000001c, 0x00000008, 0x006d6dd0

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:29 pm

oakdad wrote:Sigh I can't seem to be able to figure out how to make a bootable CD for memtest86. Don't have a floppy since I was tol they where opsolete.( From anouther foram I did learn how to not instanlly reboot so I could see the bsod. It gave me the following.
Driver_IRQL_Not_Less_or_Equal
Technical information
stop:0x000000d1, 0x0000001c, 0x00000008, 0x006d6dd0

http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.1a.iso.zip

First, download this file and unzip. The unzipped file is an ISO Image. You can use Nero Burning ROM to burn ISO Images.

Pop in a blank CD. Go into Nero and under the Recorder menu, select Burn Image. A dialog window will pop up where you can select the .iso file you just download. Burn CD.

If you don't have Nero, other programs will also burn ISO images.

In BIOS, enable the CD-ROM as the boot device before HDD. (Give the CD-ROM higher priority than the HDD In the boot sequence).

Spinner · Post by **Spinner** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:48 pm

I think I've found the problem : According to this site, the problem seems to come from the memory. So I checked the motherboard's recommendations here and here's what they say for your motherboard :

Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
Example: Kingston HyperX DDR500 PC4000 operates at 2.65V, 3-4-4-8, CL=3.
For more information about specification of high performance memory modules, please check with your Memory Manufactures for more details.

So... according to the manufacturer of your memory modules(see here for details), the correct timings for your memory are 2-3-2-6 and the voltage should be 2.8 V. The BIOS should enable you to do that quite easily.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:36 pm

FWIW, there's a USB pendrive bootable version of memtest out now.

Instant BSOD is usually a memory problem and this also seems to be the case. I'd be more suspect about the memory voltage than timings though. On auto, most BIOSs are able to correctly set timings from SPD information but I've seen several that bypass the correct voltage setting. Newer boards provide 2.65V default for PC3200 memory but your specs say 2.8V. Better check that first.

oakdad · Post by **oakdad** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:31 am

I went into bios and set my memory to 2t timings with 2/3/2/6 at 2.8v and it seems to have made a huge differance. I changed my boot order to cd/hd/disabled and made the disk as mentioned above and it still doesn't boot memtest86. I can see that I have memtest.iso on it from windows so I know the file is there but for some reason I am not doing anything.

kesv · Post by **kesv** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:50 am

jabba wrote: http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.1a.iso.zip

Actually I'd recommend using the newer and still maintained
version: memtest86+
You can get it at http://www.memtest.org/
There are precompiled images for cds, floppies and usb keys

jabba · Post by **jabba** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:03 am

oakdad wrote:I went into bios and set my memory to 2t timings with 2/3/2/6 at 2.8v and it seems to have made a huge differance. I changed my boot order to cd/hd/disabled and made the disk as mentioned above and it still doesn't boot memtest86. I can see that I have memtest.iso on it from windows so I know the file is there but for some reason I am not doing anything.

oakdad, you shouldn't burn the iso file to a CD-ROM as you would a regular file. An ISO is an entire CD Image. It's like if I had a Windows 98 CD and made a image of that CD into an ISO file. I could transfer that ISO file to you over the internet and you could burn the ISO into a CD which would reproduce the original Windows 98 CD. In other words, an ISO is a special format that you can use to reproduce a CD.

I agree with Kesv to go to http://www.memtest.org (This is what I should have recommended in the first place, but I went to http://www.memtest86.org instead and tried .com next... oops)

http://www.wizardskeep.org/mainhall/tutor/neroiso.html

The above link has a tutorial on burning ISOs using Nero. It is an older verson of nero where the "burn image" option is under the file menu.

In Nero 6, the "burn image" option is under the recorder menu