+12v rail question

[lonelypauly]

I suspect that my friends PSU may be failing...i used speedfan and it reports my 12volt rail at 9.54...is this normal?

are there any apps out there that you could recommend that i use to monitor the PSU power? How do i know if i should replace the power supply?

here's a link to the screen shot of Speed fan.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/lonelypauly/speedfan.jpg

 

[Hoshimoto]

nice screen, and very detailed, whos manufactured his mobo, if asus then use asus probe.
Anyway if 12v rail have only 9v then your SHOULD replace that psu.

 

[lonelypauly]

it's an ecs board. should the 12v rail be at 12v or is it at 9v because it's just doesn't need that much power? the system sometimes shuts off by itself, ive noticed alot of memory error messages, and firefox keeps crashing on the system. i reseated the memory and will run memtest on it as well.

 

[luminaris]

The PSU should be putting out +/- 12 volts. A normal PSU would show something like 11.97V fluctuating. Anything less than that would indicate failure. The PSU will put out that kind of power no matter what, the board will draw what it needs and if it can't get what it needs, it won't work.

 

[Hoshimoto]

right, mate u should get new psu, i read toms review of psu's and it says something like there is spec 0.5v or smth i dont remember now if voletage drops or rises beyond this much volts psu should shut down to not harm your hardware.
So if your 12v line drops to 9 then its very bad, u need new psu and it cost less than 20 bucks actually so go and buy new one now, get at least 350W PSU with 12v rail not less than 16Amps.

 

[lonelypauly]

ya think the PSU problem would explain memory errors? some applications will terminate at random and then an error message referrencing a memory location will come up.

 

[hashv2f16]

I get that all the time from running demanding programs on ridiculously slow computers. For example, when running HL2 on my laptop. Especially when I try to turn any of the video options higher than what they're already set to. But never from an insufficient power supply. I always like to have a about 220 or so Watts more than I need to leave room for any future upgrades etc.