Recent Power surges when gaming or 3d applications. Help needed please!

edmundostudios

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Hello everyone,

Before I go into details I will Drop my system specs below.

CPU: i5 3570k
GPU: GTX 660 TI
MOBO: Asus P8Z77 VLX
PSU: Corsair GS 500w gamer series.
RAM: 4x2 GB vengence corsair
HDD: 1 TB WD black and a 500gb WD blue.
OS: Windows 7
Nothing overclocked.

My homemade system I built around 9 months ago has been running almost flawlessly until today. Let me explain, I booted up my PC this morning for a casual game of Counter strike, game was running fine high FPS and all but then bam! Around 10 minutes into gameplay my system suddenly powers of and re-boots to an AMIBios screen quoting.

"asus anti surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply unit!" I have a screen shot for this message if it helps.

http://

Obviously this error is suggesting a problem with my PSU which was surprising because the incident has only occurred over today. when continuing over to the Asus bios I also noticed the 3.3V indicator was displaying as red under the 2.944 current voltage. To be honest I am not fully sure what this means but I will have a screenshot of this below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i0djd5rgjnkgqar/2013-04-26%2018.07.06.jpg

unfortunately I do not have another PSU lying around to test on because this was my first computer I built myself. I am unsure if I should request an RMA for my psu if that is the root of the problem.

Any help would be fantastic!

Thanks, Ed





 

Nikolay Savov

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Hi
The fact you have POWERED ON system and you are taking pictures from the BIOS is that the PSU is not so DEATH and defective :)
Ofc it could make problems when you game if it`s about to fail ....

I suggest you to Load Bios Defaults in the BIOS
Put all to Auto
* - double check you HDD mode settings befor and after Defaults Load - if you change the mode you may not load OS at all .... in that case you roll back the same HDD settings ( IDE or ACHI )
Now with defaults loaded check you 3,3 V are red
If they are OK load OS
You can leave the system to run few minutes - browse Internet
Then you can try run some GPU test or you can run any 3D game
If you still have the problem only under heavy 3D game then i think is you PSU
Idle PSU load will not go over 20 % in you case but if you start the game you maybe jump about 70-80% so maybe is you PSU after all
You system should be Estimated Wattage: 345W
Try to find min. 400 W PSU for test - some friend borrow maybe ....
 

edmundostudios

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Hey Nikolay,

Thanks for your response, I'll try to set my Bios to default and get back to you :)
 

edmundostudios

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Right, so I tried setting The bios to default presumably doing this by pressing the default tab and loading an optimized version. The 3.3V was still indicating at around 2.9 volts. I do have the option to turn of the software that causes the system to shut down (asus surge protection) but would this pose any risk to my system ?

From what I have read on other forums is that indications of the systems stability from the bios software are not very accurate to begin with.

Of course if it is a problem I will try to get it replaced.
 

Nikolay Savov

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Test you system in 3D
If you have the problem again try to switch off this ASUS option ....
Test you system again in 3D
If you don`t have problem there you go :)
But if you have try testing you system with other PSU
 

edmundostudios

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Thanks for getting back to me on that. Okay So I booted the system up again this morning and the voltage appeared the same under the 3,3V rail (2.9992) but this time it was indicated as blue, which is slightly confusing seeing as it's the same voltage as before.

Okay I tried out a benchmark on Valley which did not fail this time and ran at stable temps on the GPU (50-70c)
i also ran a Test on an OCCT benchmark and will post these results below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9h3lbvcbo09gwe1/2013-04-27-11h54-Voltage-3VCC.png

My question is are these voltages safe to use and do they pose any risk to my system?
 

edmundostudios

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Hmm, Just re-seated all the cables and got rid of a lot of dust. The reading is now showing the 3.3V correctly under the current voltage in bios and software, very confusing. Maybe it was just a loose cable or something? I'll update you if I get any other problems with this.

Thanks again for the support :)