HW monitor - seeing insane drops in voltages

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Can a machine still operate with drops to 0.18v on the +3.3v or 0.74v on the DDR2? VBAT is also reporting 0.18v from 3.04v

Bad PSU or fault of Hardware monitor by CPUID?

Jonnyguru, where are you!

 

[HOOfan 1]

only one way to tell...get a multimeter on it

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Those voltage readings are pretty much always worthless in my experience.

Use a multimeter.

 

[Asylum1]

Yea a multimeter is the only true way to tell.
I always see a drop even in bios on most all rigs.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Would something like this work or should i look for an analog multimeter?

 

[HOOfan 1]

Digital meters reading to two decimal places...i.e. closest thousandth of a Volt are better...at least easier to read than an analog.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

And how do I test the PSU? I went and bought mm readers; an analog and a digital. I don't' even know how to work the multimeters in the first place so if anyone of you have experience in this could you give me a hand, thanks

 

[MagickMan]

Turn the machine on and then find an unused Molex 4pin connector. Turn on the meter and put it on the correct setting. Then carefully put the metal end of black probe into a hole leading to a black wire and carefully put the red probe into a hole with a red wire. That should read somewhere around +5V. Then with the red probe, do the same thing with a hole leading to a yellow wire, that's +12V.

You should test it at idle and under full GPU/CPU load.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

When I turn on the meter, what setting do I put it to? I am completely green/noob with multimeter readers; heeh

There is a setting called ACV with a 10, 50, 150, 300 setting. It also says Max 300v AC/DC

 

[MagickMan]

Turn it to V (DC) and then adjust the range until it reads the correct decimal format.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Turn it to V (AC) and then adjust the range until it reads the correct decimal format.

Ah, thanks much

 

[MagickMan]

Actually, that's DC, I mistyped.

the one that looks like:

___
----

Edit: Not that it would hurt anything setting it to AC, you'll just get a bad reading, I suppose.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

So do I set it to the mA AC/DC position?

 

[Modelworks]

A meter should be set to VOLTS not ma or A or you will short out the meter or destroy what you are measuring the volts of.

Voltages allowed are 5% tolerance. so for 3.3V it can be no less than 3.135 and not more than 3.465

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Ok, here are the settings I can use so help me choose the correct one:

Hz Duty
V AC/DC
funny symbol lookin setting
mA AC/DC

The unit I bought is a Extech Instruments meter...

 

[MagickMan]

V ac/dc

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

nm question already answered

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

How do I test the orange 3.3v wire?

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Stick the black probe into the black cable pin on a molex connector. Then do one of the following:

1. You can find a SATA cable and stick the red probe in the back of the connector where the orange cable is.

or if that is not possible. . .

2. You can stick the red probe into the back of the main 24 pin power connector where an orange cable is. If you feel uncomfortbale doing this, you can turn off the PC, disconnect power, and then shove the red probe into the back of the connector as previously described. The probe shoud be stuck there, or you can hold it in place while you turn on the comp.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Thanks again

Now the drops are getting more infrequent since I have gotten the digital multi-meter. So, I have been trying to monitor the mm while the app is running and neither have been showing any sings of drops - how aggrevating... none-the-less, I still need to keep an eye on it before I venture off into overclocking.