I assume this is a faulty PSU?

[orchiduk]

It's an Enermax Noisetaker 370W. It should be more than powerful enough as it's quite a modest P4 system. I noticed straight away the rails looked a bit on the low side - the 12v rail in particular was reading as low as 11.5v, and usually 11.6v. I know you can't fully trust software readings on rails, but even so.

So anyway, it all worked fine for a day. Then I turned it on this morning and it had just loaded Windows when *clunk* it just powered off. Left it a while and turned it back on - this time it made it into Windows and seemed happy. Ran 3DMark, and sure enough a couple of mins later *clunk* and off it went again. Then it wouldn't power up at all again - just a brief flicker of power and that was it.

So I'm guessing it's the PSU, rather than anything else?

 

[rise]

that would be my first guess. do you have one to swap in?

it would be wise to grab a multi at radio shack or something to have seeing how inexpensive they are. as you said, the software reads are unreliable.

 

[Chesebert]

11.5=11.6 is fine for 12V rail. not PSU problem. start with software first, then ur usual hardware problem maker (i.e. mobo, IDE/STAT controller, video card, etc).

good luck

really the only component that use the 12V is HD for windows booting process IIRC

 

[stevty2889]

It could be other things as well, such as overheating. Could you list your full system specs? Also, you can't really trust software monitoring your voltages..they aren't acurate..acording to motherboard monitor my 5v rail is at 3.2v right now..and has gone as low a 1.48v..multimeter shows it at a steady 5.14v..

 

[Big Lar]

The others have stated the facts.
Can you get your hands on a decent tester for the PSU by chance?

 

[orchiduk]

Thanks for the replies guys - things have progressed a bit now...

So the Enermax basically died a death and wouldn't start up again. So I ripped out the 400W Antec SmartPower from my machine and tried that in the new PC. It worked perfectly. So the Enermax must have just been a faulty unit.

We decided to leave the Antec in the new machine as it was working fine and I went out and bought another Antec for my machine. The Enermax is going back to Newegg.

Strangely, the new Antec I just bought is working great but according to MBM5 the 3.3v rail is all over the place - 2.74 to 3.14. I don't think I'm going to take any notice of software voltage readers from now on. I'll go and invest in a meter from Radioshack instead

Thanks for the help!

 

[SomeDude22]

thats wierd enermax is one of the best PSU's

guess you lucked out