Need some old hands for this one...

[lonelypauly]

Ok. so i posted earlier about running Speedfan on my friends PC and it reported his PSU running the 12volt rail much lower than it was suppossed to be, plus the values were jumping all over the place. The 5volt rail was all over the place too.

I replaced the Powmax PSU with a 430Watt Thermaltake (AMD2200+, 1 gig of ram, ECS motherboard...plenty of power for that setup) and Speedfan still reports the same problem.

I used Speed fan on my PC and the numbers were very stable...it jived fairly well with my MSI Core Center readings.

So now the problem is likely the ECS motherboard right? Is it possible that the power outlet in the wall could be the problem? I guess I will plug his pc into my power outlet to answer the later question...but it seems like the mobo is the culprit.

I checked the ECS site but they don't have anything for diagnostic tools.

Does anyone know how i could go about testing the motherboard? I have tons of experience with computers but this is a new one on me, believe it or not.

 

[IDEV]

It does sound like it could be the voltage regulators on the MB, but before you replace it, better rule out a shorted device (I've seen a bad HD and a bad sound card cause similar symptoms)

Unlplug all non-essential items from the System. Leave only:

Motherboard
CPU
Memory
Video
Fans
Primary Hard drive

Re-run the test under this configuration. If the test passes, then isolate the faulty component by powering down, plugging one in, power up, re-run test.

If the test still fails.. go get a new m/b.

Good luck!
Brett

 

[dvdpiddy]

hmm did you look in the bios?

 

[dvdpiddy]

Why do you need old hands get young hands you could mold them into your image mwuhuhuhu hahahahaha! and they are much softer like babysoft :lol:

 

[parlee]

my 12v rail is reported as running at 5.5 v, but my system is stable... if ur system is stable then theres no reason to worry, if it starts to crash/randomly reboot then id suggest what was suggested earlier, trying a different wall outlet, if that doesnt work, unplug all non essentials, if that doesnt work, id look into a total upgrade if ur gonna use it for anything more than wordprocessing/old video games, u can build a nice complete computer for aroun 500, drop to 400 if u reuse stuff... upgrading the mobo is the last option, if it crashes randomly then u may consider a mobo upgrade... speedfan may also be wrong... it could be reporting misreads, check to see if ur bios shows similar readings

 

[lonelypauly]

cool, thanks for the 4-11 guys. i did look in the bios and now i can't remember wtf it said lol. the machine does reboot sometimes, programs that never crashed before sometimes crash...i even saw adaware crash on it...i see memory error messages pop up sometimes...firefox constantly crashes...and that damn weird "Shockwave Flash has performed an illegal operation"...that one is annoying the hell outta me.

i will try to rule out any add on cards etc.

thanks.

 

[parlee]

id try a reformat too, ur registry may be all messed, if u havnt reformatted within the last 6 months id try that out before spending the money on a mobo, speedfans readings may be wrong, but even if there right, i think the 12v rail is only for the 4 prong connectors, so it shouldnt crash ur computer, cd drives might not run (that happens to me sometimes)... i duno i could be wrong on the voltage thing, but deff try a reformat if u havnt for a while, at least to rule that out as a problem

 

[ecosoft]

Dude:
I recently had similar probs ... turned out to be memory causing crashes-reboots. Get and run memtest86 ASAP http://www.memtest86.com/

 

[lonelypauly]

ECS said that was normal...i will run memtest (i have a floppy ready to go!) i think they need a reformat...but as noobs they will complain about it...this is one of those times where i should have followed the easiest steps first method...i should have known better.