PSU voltage questions

[haemphyst]

Hi, all! New to the forum, and I am probably going to get my @$$ handed to me for the silly questions I am about to ask... But here goes, anyway!

I have a Gigabyte motherboard, Q6600 (native) 4GB of Corsair XMS2, two 300GB Seagates striped for the OS, four 500GB Seagates in a software RAID, PCI-eSATA card (for Ubuntu dual-booting from the Seagate 1T FreeAgent Extreme), GeForce 9600GSO video card. PSU is a Soly-Tech 1000W.

When I play WoW in Windows, I will get COMPLETELY random reboots - not necessarily in a city, or in a group, or anything specific. Seemed to me like a PSU issue. However, in Ubuntu, using the open source drivers, it NEVER happens. I was also thinking, "Well, the Ubuntu is on an external drive (eSATA), so the drives aren't using the internal PSU, improving stability". Nope, I dedicated the drives to an install of Ubuntu, no reboots.

I downloaded OCCT3.0, and my 12V rail was reading around 1 to 2 volts at idle, but when the tests started running, the reading would jump as high as 7-9 volts, but never reach 12V. (If you would like a copy of the graph, I have it still.) I thought "WTH is wrong with this picture...?" Yanked it. Put in an Antec EarthWatts (one of this forum's recommended PSUs) 550. Everything lights up, even with a PSU that only offers HALF the power. I have not yet tried to play WoW, I just went searching for this answer. With the Antec, SAME 12V graph in OCCT. What is wrong with this picture? I also should tell you that I have had three different video cards in this machine, and all three of them have exhibited this same behavior, the GTX260 was the worst of the offenders, though. What about CPU thermal instability? MoBo and CPU are the only things I haven't swapped out, yet.

Suggestions? Comments? Ideas? I'm all ears, everybody! I'll look into ANYTHING you might thing could help diagnose/repair this issue. I'll also kill a few pixels, and let you know what the result is, there... I just put my hand next to the 550W Antec, and it's as cool as room temp, so I know for a FACT that the 1kW PSU isn't being overloaded!

I might also mention, I am not really into overclocking, I just want a fast, stable box, that I can play my game with. I will be upgrading this MoBo today (Friday) with a new Gigabyte board and I bought the Q9650 CPU for it. I have all the parts, and 8GB of RAM with XP64 waiting to be installed. But basically, is it my PSU, my drivers, my mobo/graphics combination? Where would you guys look for the answer?

[Blazing fire]

Do you have a multimeter/voltmeter by any chance? Connect it parallel to your wires to check the voltages. For information on the voltage of a 4pin molex, check this (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article6-page1.html)up. The reason is because motherboards are not designed to give accurate voltage readings.

If the voltage does indeed jump, then disable all your connectors and jump start the PSU. Look up the following

1) http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=435
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weroTqTMPl4 (video)

This is to eliminate a faulty system.

If the voltages are still extremely high, I strongly suggest buying a now PSU. After all, good ones are quite cheap.

For your system, I think 450watts is sufficient. If you can afford it, or willing to pay, I think ~600 should be good, to ensure you can power a "bigger" GPU. A corsair hx620 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139002)/520 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001)(modular) or vx450 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004)/550 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003)is not bad.

[haemphyst]

Well, it seems it was the CPU overheating all along. Apparently the stock Intel cooler isn't good enough for running a CPU on a continuous WFO basis like it will do when gaming. After building another box, using the VERY same SolyTech 1kW PSU, with an even faster CPU, and OC'd by 16.5% (to 4.06GHz) to boot, and even more RAM, three Velociraptor 10K's, that PSU is just fine, even with another GTX260OC in the system... The card is FURTHER overclocked by the graphics manufacturer's utility, as well as the faster PCI-e bus, which I bumped about 5%. Stable as the Rocky mountains, ALWAYS 50FPS or better, "Ultra" settings!

So, I'll be swapping the stock CPU cooler on the original box... Anybody need a stocker Intel 95 watt cooler? :)

See you online! Spirestone, FTW!

[Quailane]

So, I'll be swapping the stock CPU cooler on the original box... Anybody need a stocker Intel 95 watt cooler? :)

Lol, I could.