- Joined
- Feb 20, 2004
- Location
- Murfreesboro, TN
Well, I redid my wife's computer with water cooling not too long ago. After I put it back together, it never would boot into Windows. Long story short, after a lot of troubleshooting trial and error, I finally got back into Windows a few times randomly. Then I thought to check my voltages on the MBM5 dashboard (no multimeter handy at the moment). +3.3V rail was at 2.85V. Yikes. +12V was at 11.31v, +5V was at 4.46V. (Rig is the second one listed in my sig). The 3.3V Dual Voltage listing in the bios is at 3.28V, but I have no idea what that's for.
I got it back up and running again at 9 x 200 FSB, and it'll run IE fine and even ran City of Heroes okay when I loaded it up for a minute.
My ram's running at 2.83v (according to MBM5, so take that with a grain of salt). Typically it's running at right under 3.3V, as I have my NF7 volt-modded to pull the 3.3V rail directly into the dimm slots. So it makes sense that my ram voltage reading is equal to my 3.3V rail's reading still.
This PSU is long out of warranty (I voided that over two years ago when I opened up the casing hoping to switch out its fan). I'll probably try and pick up an OCZ520W PowerStream since I want to upgrade her to a C2D rig in a couple of months and I've been very pleased with my OCZ520W on my Opty 15 rig, but I was curious before I just chucked this PSU (or modded it to serve as a 12V DC convertor to charge my R/C plane batteries) if there was any way to salvage it and get that 3.3V rail back up. There are the three dials on the front extension panel for the PSU, and they're all in the same position they've always been in (fully turned to the right). Adjust them doesn't seem to do anything as it is.
(.... gets hit with a realization ... )
( .... comes back 10 minutes later ....)
It suddenly dawned on my why turning the front extension panel's pots didn't do anything ... when I put her computer back together, I didnt want to use the extension so I left it unplugged. I later put the front extension panel in the case, however, as I didn't want to leave an open 5-1/4" bay aesthetically.
Turns out that panel is kind of important.
I turned off the computer, plugged it back in, and bam ... all my voltages are normal again.
I was going to just delete this whole post since I figured out the problem mid-writing, but I thought it would serve as a good reminder to those who read it to check EVERYTHING and never just not hook something up because you assume it's unnecessary. I reseated my waterblock umpteen times, even took it apart and raised it because it was touching the top of some capacitors next to the socket and I was afraid it was somehow shorting something, stuck the stock cooler back on, took everything out of the case ... and all I had to do five weeks ago was hook in one little 6-pin wire I had neglected.
So thanks for the help ... if only by just being here for folks to post, which caused me to actually write out my problem and henceforth realize the cause of my woes. =)
- Dave
I got it back up and running again at 9 x 200 FSB, and it'll run IE fine and even ran City of Heroes okay when I loaded it up for a minute.
My ram's running at 2.83v (according to MBM5, so take that with a grain of salt). Typically it's running at right under 3.3V, as I have my NF7 volt-modded to pull the 3.3V rail directly into the dimm slots. So it makes sense that my ram voltage reading is equal to my 3.3V rail's reading still.
This PSU is long out of warranty (I voided that over two years ago when I opened up the casing hoping to switch out its fan). I'll probably try and pick up an OCZ520W PowerStream since I want to upgrade her to a C2D rig in a couple of months and I've been very pleased with my OCZ520W on my Opty 15 rig, but I was curious before I just chucked this PSU (or modded it to serve as a 12V DC convertor to charge my R/C plane batteries) if there was any way to salvage it and get that 3.3V rail back up. There are the three dials on the front extension panel for the PSU, and they're all in the same position they've always been in (fully turned to the right). Adjust them doesn't seem to do anything as it is.
(.... gets hit with a realization ... )
( .... comes back 10 minutes later ....)
It suddenly dawned on my why turning the front extension panel's pots didn't do anything ... when I put her computer back together, I didnt want to use the extension so I left it unplugged. I later put the front extension panel in the case, however, as I didn't want to leave an open 5-1/4" bay aesthetically.
Turns out that panel is kind of important.
I turned off the computer, plugged it back in, and bam ... all my voltages are normal again. I was going to just delete this whole post since I figured out the problem mid-writing, but I thought it would serve as a good reminder to those who read it to check EVERYTHING and never just not hook something up because you assume it's unnecessary. I reseated my waterblock umpteen times, even took it apart and raised it because it was touching the top of some capacitors next to the socket and I was afraid it was somehow shorting something, stuck the stock cooler back on, took everything out of the case ... and all I had to do five weeks ago was hook in one little 6-pin wire I had neglected.
So thanks for the help ... if only by just being here for folks to post, which caused me to actually write out my problem and henceforth realize the cause of my woes. =)
- Dave
