HELP: P/S or Volt Reg??

[Gordon Moore]

My buddy is buying my old board but I'm a little leery because yesterday it starting acting bizarre. The fans started winding up and down so I turned on Motherboard Monitor (Hey I should put that on the freeware list) and noticed that the +12V was down to 11.1 then 11.5 then 10.2????? and then the graphics card hiccuped and all I saw was garbage so I quickly shut down. If I had to guess I'd say it's the power supply since it's a Deer 300W el'cheapo that came with the case.

But, could it be a faulty voltage regulator on the board? When the 12V was going screwy the vcore dropped alittle. +3 and +5 were fine just the +12 went all to hell.

I waited and turned everything back on and it seemed okay but a few minutes later same problem.

To me the more likely culprit is the p/s and I guess until I throw a new one in there and run it for a day or two I won't know for sure.

The board's a year old and made by DFI ,which, in the system integrator world is fairly reliable (nothing special, but very reliable).


Hmmmmmmmmmmm? Anyone been here before?

[Kevin P]

AFAIK the power supply generates 5 volts and 12 volts for the motherboard. MBs don't usually have their own regulators unless they're for other voltages such as the 3V or 2.2V for the processor or what have you. If the PS outputs the wrong voltage it will likely mess up the other voltage levels on the board and cause things to stop working properly.

The power supply is the first thing I would check/swap out. Most of the voltage regulation is happening in there.

KJP




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[Gordon Moore]

Sounds good to me...I was eyeing up the Antec True Power 380 any ways and I needed some justification. Talk about timing

[Andrew Pratt]

Yeah it does sound like the PS is acting up. I think my PS is a Deer as well but the one i picked up was on the recomneded AMD list so hopefully it will last a little longer then yours 8O