Normal Voltages ????

[slvryaris]

Hello everyone. I just installed my 500 Watt Antec Earthwatts PSU and I use both Speedfan and the CPUID Hardware Monitor from the makers of CPU Z and I was just curious if these seem like normal wattage and which program would you trust more with Temperature and Voltage accuracy? the voltage its putting out right now on idle and just surfing the web is:

FROM CPUID Hardware Monitor:

CPU VCORE 1.39V

+3.3V 3.31V

+12V 12.74V

-12V -6.21V

VBAT 3.31V

 

[slvryaris]

???

 

[hunter315]

Neither, check in BIOS or with a digital multimeter, software readings arent accurate many times, they have gotten better but dont rely on them.

 

[slvryaris]

They checked out in the BIOS. The only thing I was curious of was the -12V. Is this one of the two 12V rails this Antec Earthwatts has. I was just curious why it was at -6.21V. I am still not sure what they are suppose to normally be or what the voltages are going to.The BIOS only gave me the 12V, 3V, 5V and the VCORE.

 

[hunter315]

There are +12V rails, and a low current -12V rail, the -12V rail is only used for low voltage offsets in some legacy systems, it really doesnt matter these days as your motherboard likely has nothing that uses it, it is not one of the 12V rails the Earthwatts has as those provide +12V power.

 

[jsc]

About the only thing using -12 volts on a modern motherboard are the RS232 port and the built in audio.

It's strange that while the software in the BIOS can accurately measure negative voltages, many applications cannot. That is why the -12 volt output "is at -6.21v".

If you want to check the voltages with a DMM:
Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

 

[slvryaris]

The BIOS didn't have the -12V it showed up on the CPUID Monitor program. That's weird that you say that about the audio because when I first installed the PSU and booted it up it said the audio wasn't working correctly then Windows fixed it and it never happened again. When I checked the voltages in the BIOS there was only +12V,+3V,+5V, and CPU VCORE and they were all reading fine voltages. The only thing I was curious about was the -12V and why it would be registering -6.21V. I was checking to make sure evrytung including the PSU was working properly before I threw my XFX 5770 in there.