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How to Check for a Bad PSU?

pepsi71ocean

New Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Messages
1,471 (0.23/day)
Location
The Peoples Republic of New South Jersey
System Name The Grand Phoenix Clusterflop
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb @3.4GHz
Motherboard ASRock 870 EXTREME3
Cooling Xigmatec S1284 (Lapped)1x200mm, 4x120mm
Memory Muskin Silverline 4GB DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) 9-9-9-24
Video Card(s) eVGA GTX 470 SC Edition 1280mb RAM (C/S/M)(640/1280/1705)
Storage 2x500GB Seagate, 32MB Cache 1xWD 40GB UMD IDE Hdd.
Display(s) SAMSUNG 22" LCDTV HD Monitor and Samsung 24"
Case COOLER MASTER RC-690
Audio Device(s) USB 2.0 Sound (USB out to my Stero System)
Power Supply Thermaltake XT TPX-775M 775W
Software Windows XP Home SP3
How do you guys check for a bad power supply, should i run furmark and occt, with something like cpu-z and hardware monitor, and watch the voltages?

or is there a better/more accurate way of doing this?



i need some help with this guys.
 
Digital Multi Meter (DMM) get one and probe the connections at the 24-pin or 8-pin in through the back of where they clip into the motherboard.
 
you need to test every rail your PSU has.

So test the back of the 24 pin ATX lead (yellow, red and orange)

test the back of the 4/8 pin aux CPU power (yellow wire, any one)

Test the back of the 6 pin PCI-E power (if used) (yellow wire)


IMO you should compare idle and load, write them down. not just changes in voltages, but how often it moves too - EG a PSU that drops from 12.00 to 11.90 and sits there is preferred over a PSU that changes from 12.90 to 11.95 to 11.98 to 11.93 etc
 
its a single rail 60amp OP 800watt Silverstone PSU, ive never heard of one of these going south before, but im considering it as an option, however i do believe its possible that dead ram from a previous mobo could be the corruption OS issue.

i know that hardware monitor did report he 12v voltage as 11.93-11.97 and it would bounce a little between the two.

Now that i think of it nothing has been new on the system, always had a dieing component.

im not sure if this will fix it, but a new mobo and ram, is on the way, im trying to rule out a PSu this is why.
 
if its a single rail, any one 12V plug will do when testing
 
also check for fome reviews of your PSU... there, you can usually verify the quality of the parts which it's made of ;)
 
I use a PSU tester :pimp:
 
I use a PSU tester :pimp:

i had one of those. it was a pathetic little thing that had green, yellow or red lights depending on voltage. it was utterly useless - it only made about 10W load at best, so bad PSU's rails never dropped when using it
 
i had one of those. it was a pathetic little thing that had green, yellow or red lights depending on voltage. it was utterly useless - it only made about 10W load at best, so bad PSU's rails never dropped when using it

They've got way better ones now though. I may invest in having one plugged in all the time in a future system, as they look pretty decent now too.
 
i had one of those. it was a pathetic little thing that had green, yellow or red lights depending on voltage. it was utterly useless - it only made about 10W load at best, so bad PSU's rails never dropped when using it

Mine works fine now. Ive checked behind it with a trusted DMM. Its digital so I get exact numbers. It worth having IMO.
 
im not sure i still suspect that since i ate through 2 sets of crucial ram that the ram was bad.

and the P35 blew out a SouthBridge, and a set of ram, the replamcement ram lasted half of the P35 and half of the P45.

I suspect the Graphics card fried the Southbridge on the P35, and i also suspect the P45 was also heading south, but i also overclocked the PCI port to 108-110, and bumped the voltage.

Im not sure i know that Silverstone makes good PSU's, and that psu has never been close to the 90% mark, let alone i think the 80% mark.
 
put another video card stress test c wat hapens
 
ive run out of options till the new mobo and ram gets here, then i'll try some more so far the voltage meter i borrowed fro my brother shows all is fine, but we will see once i get everything back together.
 
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