Is my power supply voltage too low?

[RZetlin]

I have been suspecting for some time now that my power supply is not providing enough voltage.

Here is my voltage from MBM 5:

+12 V: +11.55 V
-12 V: -11.50 V
+3.3 V: +3.42 V
+5.00 V: 4.95 V
-5.00 V: -5.03 V

Are these consider to be acceptable values for voltage supplied?

[zerocopy]

nothing wrong there, thats all normal

[D.D.]

hmm...that 12v+ line is waay to low man...I would keep it at least 11.8 or maybe above 12

Either your psu is fuct or the mb's sensor or mosfets are screwed.

[Phoenix]

according to the ATX12V specification the values of the DC output voltages are:

+5V(±5%) from +4.75V to +5.25V
-5V(±10%) from -4.5V to -5.5V
+12V(±5%) from +11.4V to +12.6V
-12V(±10%) from -10.8V to -13.2V
+5VSB(±5%) from +4.75V to +5.25V
+3.3V(±5%) from +3.14V to +3.47V

As you see all voltages are in range, but the +12V is in the boundary of the threshold, I believe that when more current is needed the voltage may drop out of range. Also the +3.3V is a bit high.

[GKort]

if their larger then what they should be, theyre normaly warmer...and the same vice versa...and i take it MBM 5 is motherboard monitor 5??? how well does that work, and waht motherboard are you using?

[saulin]

Looks fine to me.

Using a lot of fans can cause your voltages to go very low though.

My freaking Abit board seems to downclock my voltages. for example my CPU is set to use 1.675v to keep it stable and the mob only gives 1.62v to the CPU. That is just enough to get it stable. Of course if my cooling was just a plain heatsink and fan I would have to set it to 1.725v and it would give me 1.7v

The same goes for RAM voltage and AGP voltage.

Too bad my mob is only giving like 1.58v to my video card. It is supposed to give up to 1.65v but it doesn't. Perhaps I could overclock some more with more voltage.

[Sampah]

it's fine for usual power supply, 12V is usually obly 11.5 or 11.8 if you using a multitester to test the power supply socket you will see it only output 11.5 or maybe 11.9V.

[alguna chica]

Hmm...according to my mobo monitoring program (that came with the board), my -12V is oscillating btw: -12.77 & -12.85. As the limit right now is set at -13.01 this has me a little worried. It only recently started going so low... I knew that using a 350W PSU on this comp. might be a stretch, but it's been running for over a month w/o power problems. Do you guys think the -12V value is low enough to necessitate buying a new PSU as soon as possible?

[Phoenix]

AFAIK your -12V output voltage is fine, the negative voltages are used IIRC for signaling levels such as RS232 signal voltage levels and other I/O signals as well.
Maybe your PSU is reaching its max capacity, I'd recommend you getting a 400W+ PSU in order to have enough power room.

[GKort]

RZeltin...could you tell me the average temperature of your room, where you live, and what your CPU temp is at???

[james.miller]

sampah, alguna chica , abit screwed their nf7's up badly when it came to voltage and temp readings. there is nothing wrong with either of your two boards, they just read incorrectly.

Never trust any program, or even the bios. Always use a multi meter to read the voltages, and only use the temp reported in the bios as a rough estimate, nothing more.