Power issue or mobo issue

twisty on 27/12/2009 at 10:57

Over the past few days my PC has switched off by itself whilst I was in the middle of doing something such as browsing the net, playing Dragon Age, and working on an excel document. It is hot over here at the moment but my CPU temperature has remained in the low 30s even during the most demanding of tasks.

After starting up the PC following a few of these shutdowns I have gone into the BIOS and have noticed that in the Voltage section for 3.3V it is actually somewhere between 2 and 3, displayed in a red font. My power supply is actually much noisier than what it used to be and it is almost worth getting a new power supply for noise sake alone. I would however like to be certain that the reason for the voltage anomaly is due to a faulty power supply rather than the Motherboard. Would anyone have any ideas as to what I should be looking for to investigate further?

bikerdude on 27/12/2009 at 12:31

the voltage monitoring in the bios of any motherboard is never that acurate, but Id say if its dropping so far as to be between 2-3v and from what youve said its likely that the PSU is on its way out.. But if you want to sure its the PSU and not the mobo get yerself a PSU testing, they are cheap enoguh and plug into the ATX power connector. Ive found one to show you what I mean -

(http://www.order-bulk.com/Coolmax-14909-PS-224-LCD-24-Pin-ATX-Power-Supply-Tester.html?currency=GBP#googlebase)

twisty on 28/12/2009 at 02:06

Thanks, I'll look into that option.