Antec Power Supply and ASUS board low Voltage

[deanhiller1]

I have an ASUS A7N8X Delux with an Antec LANBOY case which came with their SmartBlue powersupply(300W). My voltage every once in a while randomly jumps down to 5 volts from 12. My 3.3 volt line sometimes goes to 0.512. I am wondering why. I am not overclocking or anything.

I have a CPU fan, 2 case fans(the board only support one, so the other one is plugged into the power supply directly)and a power supply fan. I have one harddrive, a CDROM, and a disk drive. A basic system with 300W and I am getting these voltage drops. I am wondering if my power line in from my house is dropping and so the power supply drops and then I see the drop on my board. My computer has not gone off yet when these drops occur. My computer keeps on going. What could be causing this, and a even more important question, how do I debug something like this step by step.

One last thing is that I enabled the keyboard on function which sucks 1Amp or so according to the manual.

thanks for any pointers in debugging this problem.
thanks,
dean

 

[pIII_Man]

300 watts is a bit too little...i would say 350 is minimum for new systems...

That being said...i think the program you are reading from is giving false info...if you ever had a 5v, 12v line the computer would definatly freeze...i would recomend a bigger powersupply...however if it is stable i guess you could get away with your current setup...

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz...

 

[Flinx]

A:It would have been helpful to list your components:
1) Processor
2) Graphics card
3) number of disk drives
4) number of case fans
5) how much memory

If you have a big GPU it could be that your PSU is too small.

B: If power supply in your district is flaky then consider a UPS (Uninteruptible Power Supply, ie. battery) that filters and steadies your power.

C: Inclined to agree with PIII about incorrect readings.

D: Commonly recommended test in the forum is to watch (monitor) the CPU cooling fan when you insert a CDRom and it spins up. If the fan speed drops you have too little power.

Hmm BTW, anybody out there want to say how much of a drop is acceptable (if any). I get a drop of 4% on my CPU cooling fan when I do that.


The loving are the daring!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Flinx on 07/30/03 01:43 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

If you think you're getting brownouts on the power grid, you should be using a UPS, ie Uninteruptable Power Supply.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[pIII_Man]

i disagree...fedex all the way...

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz...

 

[Crashman]

But UPS has those cool new trucks, the ones with the grille that looks like a car grille, those are made by Freightliner (!) and the same model as used for hauling emptied corpses full of drugs on Bad Boys 2!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[pIII_Man]

i guess...i have yet to see badboys 2....i am still trying to get over the first movie (not exactly amazing)

3 386DX-25's...12 volts...glue some ln2 and a wicked amount of overclocking and you get a willamantee minus 36 pins, 33.75 million transistors and a couple hundred mhz...

 

[Karlsbad]

You can get a new APC backups PRO 1100 on ebay for less than 150 bucks and you can even connect your speakers and 21" monitor to that bastard.

<A HREF="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2746074525&category=16184" target="_new">http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2746074525&category=16184</A>

I bought two APC UPS's on ebay, with no problems at all, very happy with the units and the price was less than 50% retail. Like anything on ebay though you would want to watch the category and a few of the kind of item you're looking at for a while before you jump in. I wouldn't mess around with a rebuild unless the price was great, say like 150 bucks for a smart 1500 with a replacement battery might be worth it. Btw you might be tempted to get a high VA unit like that and spend a chunk of change or get a rebuild, but you can get the same or more total VA rating much cheaper by buying two smaller ones. Make sure you look at what they're charging for shipping before you bid, it tends to be a bit on the high side, especially in this category, but you will still make out over retail.

Oh wait, this isn't a UPS or ebay thread at all, is it?

Got an Antec True 480 coming Tuesday for 90 bucks out the door at accupc.com!

Committed to excellence, willing to make do with high average, able to get by on mediocrity in a pinch.

 

[Crashman]

But my 900 powers my computer, speakers, 19" monitor, VCR, Amigan monitor (for the VCR), printer, scanner, and Lamp already! For 45 minutes! And it was sorta FREE.

You see, I went to an auction and bid on a computer for $20. The UPS came with it. Noone was interested in the UPS, so the bidding never went above what similar computers were selling for.

I brought it home, replaced the four 6v batteries with 2 12v batteries (exactly twice the size, so they fit perfectly), and these batteries not only have a better AH rating but were only $13 each at batteries.com


So a free UPS with $26 invested in batteries, better than new performance. Sounds better than $150 for a 1100.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>