Bad Mobo or bad PSU?

[cerberus92]

I have a 500 watt apeva PSU, my 3volt and 5 volt are just fine but my 12 volt rail says its at 2.18 volts with everest and pc wizard, but when i restart and go into my bios it says i'm at 12.30 volts. My specs are 4gb ddr 2 800, evga 250 gts, gigabyte p31-es36 and intel pentium e6300 wolfdale. my last graphics card capacitors kept popping, one popped i had it replaced then 2 more a month later, the system itself is somewhat stable in games my graphics are very very low compared to what i should be able to do, starcraft 2 can barly run medium/high. my power supply is an Apeva Java win 500xspx my original graphics card was an xfx 8600 gt and i had it for 3 years so i figured it was just old age at first until i was looking at these programs. if anybody could help it would be very appreciated.

 

[cerberus92]

easytune 6 says my voltage is 12.230v but the others say 2.18v if that helps any

 

[alyoshka]

It would be wiser to replace the PSU then to keep replacing other hardware if you feel that it's giving insufficient or excess power.

Insufficient power would cause random reboots under loads.
Excessive power will cause capacitors bloating and overheating issues.....

So you really need to get a good power supply, something that is reliable and long lasting....

 

[cerberus92]

yea i have heating issues under load my graphics card hits 70C with the fan on auto, i'm not sure if the card just runs hot or if it is the PSU, I am hoping apeva will exchange this one for another.if not is Diablotek any good? their 600 watt psu has some good reviews on it

 

[alyoshka]

If I were you I'd go for a more standard brand, something like which is widely used....
Corsair, Thermaltake, XFX etc etc..... something on those lines.....

 

[cerberus92]

well if my PSU checks out fine would it be my motherboard by chance? I've never seen an issue quit like this before i'm not really overheating terribly,my CPU under load hits 109F MAX and my graphics card is at 53c right now under load. i have never had a random restart or anything, one thing that i have notice lately in WOW whenever i have any other sound going on like music or a video, i gets staticy i have reinstalled wow once since the issue and it still does it.

 

[alyoshka]

So it's not a problems with the PSU or the Mobo.
You may be having driver issues or bottlenecks.....
Your temps seem to fine..... no issues on that side....

 

[cerberus92]

Drivers are fully updated, what exactly is a bottleneck and is there anyway to fix it?

 

[cerberus92]

also the performance is what really gets me, my previous card the 8600 GT i got about the same frames as I do this 250 gts i can only run starcraft 2 on medium settings if i'm lucky

 

[alyoshka]

Bottleneck are when mismatched hardware is put together in a rig causing the slow of data between the processor, hdd, gpu or ram to stop break and then flow at times.

 

[cerberus92]

I never had this issue until recently though, and i have not changed anything.