voltage readings - incorrect?

[HicRic]

I was having an idle look through the sticky that nobody will ever read (as it's named ) and came across this:

Q: My voltages look to be low/high/odd is this something to worry about?
A: Most computer parts are designed to run within a certain percentage of the stated "normal" voltage.
I would not worry too much unless the voltage is varying by more than about 5% (remembering that the monitoring provided by motherboards is not going to be great).
So as a rough guide.
1.5v = 1.42 to 1.57v
3.3v = 3.1 to 3.45v
5v = 4.75 to 5.25v
12v = 11.4 to 12.6v

I looked in AIDA32, a program which appears to know everything there is to know about the computer you run it on. It says this for my sensor voltage values:

+3.3 V 3.14 V
+5 V 4.95 V
+12 V 1.60 V

The 3.3 is a little low but acceptable, and the 5 is looking nice. But the 12V rail is running at 1.6! That can't be right!

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing this a few months ago and shrugging it off, so it isn't a sudden thing that's happened. The computer seems stable and I'm doing fine with long gaming sessions. The reason I ask is...well, is the PSU going to explode and take my rig out or something? Should I be panicking, or is the program/sensor just showing a false reading? Or is this very low value perfectly acceptable?

The PSU in question is a generic brand 250W provided with an HP pavillion computer, approaching two years old. I've added a couple of bits here and there and it plays things like BF2 and Oblivion okay.

Celeron D 2.53GHz (yes, I know... )
768mb PC2700 RAM
9800pro


Hopefully someone can put my fears to rest...or perhaps tell me to shut off my computer ASAP and never turn it on again until I get a new PSU!

 

[HicRic]

Thanks mate. I thought it sounded unlikely but it's best to be sure.