I have been having trouble with my system freezing, and after much searching, it looks like it's my PSU. Just to make sure before I go out and drop $80-100 for a new good PSU, please let me know if you would agree that it's the problem.

I have a new case, mobo, P4 2.8gig CPU, and DDR ram. With Hardware Sensors Monitor, and MBM5, the +12V rail seems to be at +10.18V-10.24V. Since this is way out of the 5-10% fluctuation range, I assume this is a problem. Would this make the system freeze? Usually under load, such as gaming or encoding.

I have tried swapping the ram out and it doesn't seem to help. Different cheap PSU's end up with the same readings and symptoms.

Thanks for the input.

DrMarvin

It could be a bad reading, try checking it with a volt meter.

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Now I couldn't find my multimeter so I went ahead and picked up a Thermaltake Purepower 420W. Hardware Sensors Monitor seems to still be giving me low (but not as low [+10.94V on +12V rail]) readings. MBM5 seems to read a little higher around +11.04V. I know I need to get a multimeter to check for sure, but it didn't seem to help my freezing problem. I am really at a loss as to what my problem is.

I have tried it with only the main HD in place, and when I try playing a game, such as Halflife 2 and XIII, things get ugly. I can usually play the game for about 2 min before everything freezes up.

I have the latest drivers for my ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, and the latest drivers for my sound card and NIC. Unfortunately I can't take those out since they are onboard. The system is running with a brand new stick of 512meg DDR PC333 ram, and a brand new P4 2.8gig 533mhz non-Prescott CPU. The motherboard is a Soyo P4VGA. I know you may tell me that it's my motherboard because it's cheap, and I hope it's not but I'm trying to rule out everything else. The system gets far more stable if I use the option in Hardware Sensors Monitor that allows me to throttle the CPU speed. If I drop the speed by 12.5%, the computer doesn't crash, but it's chunky as hell, as one would imagine.

Could it still be the PSU, and I'm just unlucky, or could it be something else?

Thanks for the input.

DrMarvin

Definatly check those readings w/ a multimeter. If they are acurate I guess the next thing to replace would be the motherboard. I've got nothin against that motherboard, I've used many soyo boards and they were all very good. But if it has faulty regulators or something you are definatly going to want to replace it.

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The Gigabyte GA-8ISXT-FS is a CHEAP board ($40 with 865PE chipset), your board was probably more expensive and definatly a lower quality unit. But you can keep your fingers crossed and maybe it will be something else. Try slowing your RAM down.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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