+12v Rail showing 8v on two PSUs

[taxicrab]

Hi everybody. About a week ago, due to some freezing/crashing/diagonal red pixel patterns I was getting in games, I checked with EVGA to see what the problem might be. They suggested looking into the PSU (PC Power and Cooling 750W Silencer Quad-Black) and video drivers.

I made sure the drivers were up to date and not corrupted, then ran CPUID's PC Wizard to check voltages. I noticed that the +12v rail was only showing an output of ~8v. Thinking this was the problem, I ordered a Corsair 750W PSU to replace it.

I installed the new PSU today only to find the same reading on PC Wizard, and the same freezing/crashing/red pixels I was getting before. The odds of both PSU's being busted are a bit slim, I think.

So who's the real bad guy?

 

[EXT64]

That is most likely due to the 12V sensor being miscalibrated or hooked up to the wrong input to the sensor chip. It happens a lot, so I would not worry about that 8V reading. The only way to really check is with a volt/multimeter.

 

[EXT64]

Also, to rule out the video drivers, can you try a full reformat or use a program like driversweeper to clean out all traces of the old drivers?

 

[JDFan]

might also try another program to see if it also reports it the same - ie. speedfan or similar

 

[taxicrab]

Actually, I'd been planning on reformatting and upgrading to Windows 7 before this happened, and I did shortly thereafter, so I can verify that the newest drivers were installed clean while the problem was still ongoing.

And as far as the misreading, I checked my voltages in BIOS and they're actually ~12V, so obviously that isn't the issue.


Something I forgot to mention before: Around the same time these graphic errors started occurring, my NIC became really unstable, only connecting me to the internet about half the time, and never after a restart.

Could this be a motherboard issue?