Unsolvable Hardware Problems?

[Steve C]

Hi Guys,
Just thought I'd let you know something I've found out recently on a couple of occasions. First, involving a non-matrox card (ATi I think) and an Abit BX6r2 with a PII-450 in it and so on. Nightmare instability problems all over the place - we checked for over heating, we replaced board, chip, cards all to no avail. In the end, it was the Power Supply in the case was not supplying the +5v and the +12v quite right - as in we were getting around +3v and +16 volts.
Also have seen this with a totally different case/hardware combination. Replacing the power supply fixed all the problems we were having.

Just thought I'd pass on this little tidbit.

Cheers,
Steve

[Joel]

That is true. A malfunctioning power supply can cause alot of problems especially in todays systems where the componenets are less tolerate to voltage changes.

Joel

[Jammrock]

That's one good thing about ASUS boards, they have voltage meters built in the board and the reads out in the BIOS. I actually checked their reading to a DMM's readings and it was dead on. Dead power sipplies are a pain to troubleshoot...unless the computer doesn't turn on at all, then it's obvious.

Jammrock

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PIII 540 (120 MHz x 4.5 - 540), 256 MB PC133 SDRAM, ASUS P3B-F, Winblows 98 SuckyEdition, 18 GB WD Expert HDD, Encore 6x DVD w/ Dxr3 decoder, (TEMPORARY!!!) Voodoo 3 2000 @ 175 MHz which will be replaced by a Matrox G400 MAX, Sound Blaster Live! full retail, MAG DX715T 17

[M Ragsdale]

Hi Jammrock,
ABit boards do the same thing (hardware monitoring). I have seen Power supplies that were overheating and sending wrong voltages screw alot of shit up. The AGP cards are very affected by shifting voltages on the board.

Matt

[djroberts]

That sucks, I always asume a good Power Supply.

- DJ