Solved Tech input needed please

[Dave76]

Very good troubleshooting so far.

When you did the test as indicated in your first paragraph, did you short between the green and black wires on the 20 or 24-pin connector?
Plug components back in - one at a time - to see if a component may be causing a short?

Did you test another PSU in your system?
You mentioned it but didn't see a result.
As mentioned before, a 5 volt reading doesn't mean everything is good with the PSU. A low voltage reading does mean there is a problem, then there is the intermittent faults that can drive you crazy when trouble shooting.

Do you have a voltage regulator, UPS or surge protector in line?
Power outages can effect the above items as well as your computer.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes Dave what confuses me is that the volts are low on test without the mobo yet rise when the mobo id connected up - it just doesn't make sense.

I think personally trying a new PSU would be the go if worst comes to the worst at least Edi will have a decent PSU to start with.

Now having said that I am just wondering if the low volts registering on the differing leads are being "supplemented" by the 24 pin via the mobo when hooked up? Again the fact that the GPU remains cool is also a two edged sword in that is it the mobo or the GPU chip being burnt out that is itself might explain why the volts because of the lack of the drain on the supply?

Jeeps this is a curly one and it would be really good to see it first hand..

 

[edilee012]

Very good troubleshooting so far.

When you did the test as indicated in your first paragraph, did you short between the green and black wires on the 20 or 24-pin connector?
Plug components back in - one at a time - to see if a component may be causing a short?

Did you test another PSU in your system?
You mentioned it but didn't see a result.
As mentioned before, a 5 volt reading doesn't mean everything is good with the PSU. A low voltage reading does mean there is a problem, then there is the intermittent faults that can drive you crazy when trouble shooting.

Do you have a voltage regulator, UPS or surge protector in line?
Power outages can effect the above items as well as your computer.

Yes shorted green and a black so PSU would come on. When I ran this test I had 3 hard drives and a few case fans still plugged in got the 3.74V reading on all 5V except the standby power one. Hooked entire system back up and tested while running from back side of 24 pin connector and the 5V readings were 5.12V. I know this PSU has alot of protections on it so might be the cause for lower voltage reading when unplugged but I have no idea.

I tested another ATX PSU I have that is too low wattage to run my entire system and doesn't have the 8 pin connector for CPU power so I just tested the 20 pin connector unhooked for reference since I know that PSU works. It did read 5v where it should have and it wasn't hooked to UPS.

It is plugged into a UPS so I will test unhooked tomorrow bypassing it. The PSU is a Thermaltake Toughpower 850 in case I hadn't mentioned that.

The auction on Ebay ended today and I passed on it and good thing because it way too high that motherboard being as old as it is. I have decided to just save the cash and upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and ram to a more current system which I want to do anyways. Thank goodness it is tax time! Will run those tests tomorrow and repost...might even have another PSU in another PC that has the aux CPU power connector...just remembered it.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Very good troubleshooting so far.

When you did the test as indicated in your first paragraph, did you short between the green and black wires on the 20 or 24-pin connector?
Plug components back in - one at a time - to see if a component may be causing a short?

Did you test another PSU in your system?
You mentioned it but didn't see a result.
As mentioned before, a 5 volt reading doesn't mean everything is good with the PSU. A low voltage reading does mean there is a problem, then there is the intermittent faults that can drive you crazy when trouble shooting.

Do you have a voltage regulator, UPS or surge protector in line?
Power outages can effect the above items as well as your computer.

Yes shorted green and a black so PSU would come on. When I ran this test I had 3 hard drives and a few case fans still plugged in got the 3.74V reading on all 5V except the standby power one. Hooked entire system back up and tested while running from back side of 24 pin connector and the 5V readings were 5.12V. I know this PSU has alot of protections on it so might be the cause for lower voltage reading when unplugged but I have no idea.

I tested another ATX PSU I have that is too low wattage to run my entire system and doesn't have the 8 pin connector for CPU power so I just tested the 20 pin connector unhooked for reference since I know that PSU works. It did read 5v where it should have and it wasn't hooked to UPS.

It is plugged into a UPS so I will test unhooked tomorrow bypassing it. The PSU is a Thermaltake Toughpower 850 in case I hadn't mentioned that.

The auction on Ebay ended today and I passed on it and good thing because it way too high that motherboard being as old as it is. I have decided to just save the cash and upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and ram to a more current system which I want to do anyways. Thank goodness it is tax time! Will run those tests tomorrow and repost...might even have another PSU in another PC that has the aux CPU power connector...just remembered it.

Good call Edi as I said earlier maybe time to look at an Intel set up mate unless you are out and out AMD. I have nothing against the latter but just find that support for Intel that bit better and I have gone over to Asus boards now after a couple of Gigabytes which good did not have such good features - although support wise they are as ordinary as Gigabyte.
Let us know how you go as you have certainly been through the hoop with this one eh?

John

 

[Dave76]

Good plan, let us know your test results.

 

[edilee012]

OK plugged directly into an outlet instead of the UPS and did some extensive testing so see what you think.

24 pin unhooked from mb, 8 pin cpu aux, and 6 pin vid card all unhooked and PSU paper clipped to come on. 2 DVD and 3 HDD left hooked to power. 5V plugs read 4V and as I unhook DVD and HDD's one at a time voltage increases with each drive unhook. When all are unhooked I get 5.12V. Doesn't matter which one I plug back up the voltages starts dropping, tested each one individually. Had a second cord with SATA power connectors tried it as well and same result.

Put system back together and booted into windows with everything hooked up...now here is the part I don't understand....tested from back side of 24 pin and some 4 pin molexes also and 5V plugs are all reading 5.12V!! Is this a trait of my PSU where it has to be grounded to the mb?

EDIT: Two different monitoring softwares show the 5v as 4.892v while running in windows. I think the PSU has some regulator that ramps up the volatge when load is applied...or so I have read something to this effect. If it is reading correct while system is powered then I am at the conclusion the PSU is ok. When I plugged in that spare drive for testing something must have shorted out related to the #1 PCIe slot.

If we are at an agreement on a faulty motherboard then I am going to need some some upgrade suggestions for an Intel system. I know I will be building with the I7 2700k and was looking at the Z68 boards?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hum still think the PSU is not well as the regulators are supplied by volts above that which are supplied so that 5v should remain constant typically it is either a 7.5v 9v or 12v in line the output is "regulated" by the device. So the drop at the output has to coincide with a drop in the input.

the one in my pic is a 7805 but there 7809 7812 7815 devices and dedicated circuits that do the same job but if you look inside the PSU (BE CAREFUL) you will see these devices bolted to those large heatsinks and the 317 series are adjustable but for our purpose the regulated supply will rely much on the same principle as these devices in the the " extra" voltage is "leaked" to ground See pics

   Warning

DO NOT OPEN the PSU !!!!!

Doing so could result in you being electrocuted to DEATH.

 

[edilee012]

That is more technical than I can comprehend LOL. I did send a message to Thermaltake to see if they think the reading of lower volts is a problem or something operating as designed if powered on while unhooked from motherboard. To me the low volt readings seem like a major issue and are definite signs of it failing but when it is put under normal system load and hooked up properly as it should the volt readings are right on par....why do they read low when very little is hooked to PSU? Seems odd to me.

I have several old PC's around here that are for parts and what not but they all have 300 watt PSU's that don't even have the proper connectors to hook into my system or I would swap one in on a bare minimum system and see if anything changes. I even have an ATI 1000 vid card that does not need a seperate power connector that I could drop in but my motherboard has an 8 pin CPU aux plug and non of the other PSU's have that.

If I wasn't so broke this wouldn't be a problem! HAHA. After endless searching on the web about testing PSU's I haven't ran across anything that indicates that the 5v should be as low as mine in a hooked or unhooked configuration.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

No mate it isn't that technical to be honest just think of the middle connection being a pressure relief valve in a water pipe so that the pressure is constant at the outlet and the water is the electrical "pressure" in volts it is just diverted away to ground to keep that end voltage stable at 5v. The regulator has just a small chip in it for that purpose.

I am at a loss to explain the drop in volts though and the only thing that I can think of is that it has some compensating circuitry in the PSU to keep that voltage up when a load is a applied - in other words it could be some power saving / economy feature - but that is purely guessing.

If you lived closer mate I have shelves full of old (ish) PSU's that would get you out of trouble and you would be welcome to any one of them but.....

I had a PSU go just like yours a while ago in my tester machine and it was registering the right volts but boot and sustaining it was hopeless until a I stuck in a Coolermaster 550watt that I had hanging around and bingo the thing took off. As mentioned earlier the volts were right but the current pathetic in the original PSU that what threw me off the scent it was pure chance really as I thought the machine was dead for all intents and purposes.

 

[edilee012]

It is a shame every PC I have access to has a crappy PSU that can't even power my 5 year old system LOL. I do understand the regulator maintaining the proper steady voltage and I am still supect of the PSU. Maybe Thermaltake can provide me with some info.

After using Thermaltakes PSU calculator to see how much wattage you need I see I actually went way overboard on this system as a 600w would have been plenty! I did buy with future upgrading in mind and I used it to calculate my system with upgraded parts (mb, cpu, and ram) and get this...the wattage requirement is less! Hooray for less power consumption in Intels newer cpus compared to the AMD power hogs.

I appreciate all the help you and the others have provided and I have learned a few things about testing PSU's and I will carry that with me when I work on other peoples computers. At this point I am going to save the $$ for the upgrade parts and I will allow some $$ for a new PSU as well just in case.

 

[edilee012]

Also I have had some errors in my Event viewer under the administrative events and here is one that might be of interest in this case or not but it is a HAL error and it reads"
The platform firmware has corrupted memory across the previous system power transition. Please check for updated firmware for your system."

This error has been persistant over a long period of time and is logged daily. I read it has to do with the BIOS and I of course did re-flash my BIOS as well as reset it. Any ideas on what exactly this error points to?

 

[gregrocker]

Do not open your PSU as shown in the screenshot as there are cases of residual power electrocuting users even while unplugged.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well Edi personally I like the Corsair range the HX and TX series being reliable and not really that expensive I run my Sandy Bridge with an HX 650 and it has a ton of grunt and the Ivy Bridge with a HX 1050 (I got that for $100 off being a superceded model)

Something like this would be the go for you and maybe whee you are the price would be a bit cheaper as we pay fairly premium prices for gear out here Corsair TX-750 V2 Power Supply [CMPSU-750TXv2] - $149.00 : PC Case Gear

I have to say I admire how you have hung in there mate and remained so positive and cheerful in what is a PITA situation do let us know how you get on though.

John

 

[edilee012]

Those look to be able to do the job the HX is 149 and TX is 109 here at newegg. I will probably grab that first to test my current system and it solves my issue then I can get one more year out of this PC. If not then I can build a new base system and upgrade the vid cards later.

The latest game I play is Black Ops 2 and the minimum Nvidia card is the 8800 GT 512 and I have the 8800 GTS 512 in SLI, if slot was working, and it runs smooth but soon my cards will be off the list. Playing it single card it still runs smooth so they have some life left in them.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Those look to be able to do the job the HX is 149 and TX is 109 here at newegg. I will probably grab that first to test my current system and it solves my issue then I can get one more year out of this PC. If not then I can build a new base system and upgrade the vid cards later.

The latest game I play is Black Ops 2 and the minimum Nvidia card is the 8800 GT 512 and I have the 8800 GTS 512 in SLI, if slot was working, and it runs smooth but soon my cards will be off the list. Playing it single card it still runs smooth so they have some life left in them.

Well Edi I just pulled up Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Power Supplies, Power Supplies, Corsair and that TX 750 looks a very good price and is $50 less than we pay out here mind you the HX 650 does almost supply what is stated in the name.
Actually those cards don't seem to use as much power as I thought they would but I am NO expert with GPU's to be honest but that 750 would seem to be the bill filler. So you would know better than me what you need .

 

[westom]

After using Thermaltakes PSU calculator to see how much wattage you need I see I actually went way overboard on this system as a 600w would have been plenty!

Most computers consume less than 200 watts. And might demand 350 watts for an extremely short period. Sizing a power supply means amperes for each DC voltage. Wattage is a rather useless number.

Since most have no idea what their system needs, then we ballpark those current numbers, calculate a ballpark wattage, and then tell everyone a watts numbers that is at least double what they need. That is why so many believe a 500 and 800 watt supply is needed for a computer that consumes mostly less than 200 watts.

If a computer consumed that much power, then the room is heated like it was a four slice toaster. Obviously no computer consumes that much power.

Power supplies can become unstable when connected to a near zero or no load. So 3.75 on the 5 volts is understandable. Some will measure 5 and other 3.75 without a big load. Best and only reliable way to measure a power supply is with it connected to a full load (ie entire computer). Setupt a machine to acess (multitask) to all peripherals. Only then is it ready to measure critical voltages on any one red, orange, yellow, green, gray, and purple wire. Voltages on all six wires are important.

Best time to identify a PSU problem is when nothing is disconnected or changed.

Many web sites discuss measuring a disconnected PSU with a 'black to green' jumper. An unreliable measuring method. And does not include other critical functions in the power 'system'. A PSU is only one component of that 'system'.

Until a power 'system' is defined stable (ie by multimeter numbers), than all other testing for an intermittent is unreliable and maybe creates confusion. Spec volt numbers (ie above 4.75 for 5 volts) is not what the meter should read. For example, a 5 volt wire reading 4.8 volts means the supply is 100% defective. Would explain intermittents. Reasons why require engineering knowledge that need not be discussed.

Post VDC numbers for those six wires when fully loaded by the computer. Those numbers report numerous things that may be too complex to discuss. But mean others who better know the technology can provide better answers.

Are other PSUs too small? Same multimeter measurements can also define a smaller PSU as too small or more than sufficient. Again, those numbers from a meter, when a supply is powering everything, says a lot more than you might realize. A 300 watt supply might be more than large enough. But nobody can say without measuring its voltages when fully loaded by the computer.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes I know what you mean westom and from what I know the PSU only generates the amount of power that is being called for ie a 750 watt requiring 250 watts for the machine running say just normally (for example) instance will only put out that amount and not the full 750 rating.

Simply put it is like you having a water tap that can deliver 200 gallons per minute but if you turn it on just enough to deliver 50 gallons per minute then that is all that will flow from the water source. Therefore the amount of what that the PSU produces is proportional to the amount of power being required from it.

It is slightly different to say a normal power supply where there is power running at a steady but small current through the primary winding of a transformer while the secondary winding might not be drawing anything at all. This changes when a load is applied to the secondary winding see Transformer Loading and On-load Phasor Diagrams
This is because of the form of rectification that is utilised in a computer switched mode PSU where the transformers are much smaller than the former type of power supply where quite large to enormous transformers were required to supply the current that was needed by whatever device it was supplying.


So having a larger than required capacity PSU does not necessarily mean that power is going to be wasted.
I have a UPS that has a readout on my screen that changes as I use more than idle with my machine and the 1050 watt PSU is using 265 watts as I type and that includes the modem, audio set up, monitor, telephone, two other monitors on stand by etc so I would hazard a guess at my computer is using at best 250 watts in toto.

But I do stand to be corrected.

 

[Britton30]

Westom is using XP and is behind the time in recommending a proper PSU for anyone. I support what Icit2lol has recommended for you. A good PSU like the 750 and 850's from Corsair will do the job and give you some headroom for the future as well.

 

[westom]

So having a larger than required capacity PSU does not necessarily mean that power is going to be wasted.

Correct. But irrelevant to the OP's problem. The point: a 350 watt supply can probably be swapped in and is sufficient to temporarily power the OP's intermittent system. A multimeter can confirm if that smaller supply is sufficient - and without any doubt.

Meanwhile, a meter can also exonerate or accuse the orginal supply. Also without doubt. Either the supply (and other parts of the power system) is defective; causing intermittens. Or that power system is OK; move on to other suspects.

Multiple procedures were provided to first identify and then solve that intermittent problem.

Makes little sense to wildly replace what may be a perfectly good PSU. Exonerate or accuse the original supply in minutes using that multimeter. And not by doing what many web sites show. A defective supply may test good when disconnected from its computer. Useful numbers from a meter exist only when a supply is connected to everything.

 

[edilee012]

Some good points in those last posts. I did a get a response from Thermaltake and they stated that the 5v is for standby and most all components run off the 12V. The reason I can't drop in a spare 300 watt PSU I have laying around is they are all 20 pin and have no CPU aux 8 pin connector at all...my board need 24 pin plus the 8 pin. Also if I have no direct power to the vid card my southbridge screams or at least I think it is the sb, might be on the card itself...something squeals like crazy.

I am worrying less about the low 5v reading when 24 pin is unhooked and the fact it reads spot on when hooked up is leading me to focus on the mb at this time. If PSU acts up when I upgrade then it will be replaced as well. PSU's fail after time and this one has served 5 years.

When I made the choice for the 750watt PSU it was based off what EVGA/Nvidia stated the required amps were needed for that card and I believe it was a max of 37amps. Mine was 60 something and I figured that would serve well enough for a SLI system. I saw a newer PSU yesterday rated at 750 watts but had a max of 40 amps...don't think that would cut it for my system. I did go high on wattage for future needs but also bought according to the max amp rating on the 12v rail.