Inconsistent Data from Monitoring Programs

Just_An_Engineer

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Feb 18, 2008
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Hello Everyone,

I'm looking into the prospect of overclocking my old socket 939 rig and have run into some peculiar inconsistencies in the data being reported by some of the monitoring software I have been using. While testing to see if my current HSF would be up to the task of a mild overclock, I was monitoring my temps using Speedfan while running Prime95. The temperature data seemed to be fine, however I noticed that Speedfan was reporting the +12V voltage on my power supply as only +11.3 volts.

Since this voltage out of spec, I stopped the test in Prime95 to see if that had any effect on the voltage, but it did not. I then opened up that monitoring software that came with my motherboard (AbitEQ) to double check the voltage, but found that this program showed the +12V voltage a fluctuating between +12.03V and +12.07V. I then checked in BIOS and found that the voltage listed there was +12.04. A quick check with my multimeter verified this result.

I guess my question would be why is Speedfan giving a result so much different than the other monitoring software when they should both be getting data from the same place? I'm somewhat hesitant to believe any of the data I'm getting from these programs now.

Anyone have an idea what might be causing this discrepency?

Thanks.
 

B-Unit

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Oct 13, 2006
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Take the data from your multimeter, its the most reliable. From what Ive read, none of the software monitoring for power is very accurate.
 

Just_An_Engineer

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Feb 18, 2008
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Thanks for the reply. I agree with you 100% that the multimeter results are the only ones that matter. My concern is mainly whether or not I can believe any of the information from the monitoring programs. Since my original post I have found some additional inconsistencies that are also troubling.

As I mentioned before, I was evaluating whether or not my CPU cooler was large enough for me to do a mild overclock on my X2 4200+. After running both cores at 100% load for 20 minutes using prime95, the CPU temperature reported by speedfan and AbitEQ was about 47C, which from what I've read is low enough that I should be able to do a MILD overclock without having to change my CPU cooler. However, when I checked the temps with Everest to see the temp of each individual core, it showed the temp of each core at approximately 53C.

I'm sure that this is another case of the monitoring software being unreliable so I checked the surface temp of the heatsink with my pyrometer and found that to be 42C so I think I should be okay to proceed with the overclock as long as I keep checking the temps with the pyrometer.