Wow, check out those rock-solid rails!

mogli1990(OcUK) · 30 Jun 2008 at 23:37

A few years back, my nephew (8 y/o) bought my computer off me, had an X800XT AIW, 1GB of OCZ's DDR600 2.5-4-4-8 / DDR400 2-2-2-5 ram, 2.4GHz Athlon64 3700+ Clawhammer, DFI Lanparty UT NF3, and an OCZ Powersteam 520W. He had his mates over and somehow the PSU went, so I fitted him a 300W QTec Generic (that name makes you cringe I know), but his comp wasn't stable with that X800XT in it so I fitted him a Ti500 GF3 instead... he knew the difference between running NFS:MW on a GF3 and the X800XT so he was pretty upset, and I kept promising I would RMA his PSU but I just couldn't be bothered... he kept askin though and so in the end I said "ok ok, have my Quad Core system and I'll take yours" (lol that probably sounds crazy I know!) so he'd been using my system for a few months, and complaining about how it wasnt as good as his (lol what a joker!) so in the end me and my sister (his mum) decided that I'd give him my 430W Antec Earthwatts PSU (came with my case) and take his OCZ and that QTec and sort it out for myself... So I fitted his PC with the Earthwatts and gave it back to him and he was happy, only to be stuck with trying to run my rig off this 300W QTec... I mean this is the old kind of PSU with that weird connector on it that connects to OLD OLD style motherboards... I've only ever seen one of them motherboards in my life and it was running a Cyrix 150MHz CPU... anyway, miraculously, the PSU worked and I even managed to clock up my Q6600 to 3GHz Prime Stable on it... then I opened CPUID's Hardware Monitor...

When I opened it I saw 6.97v and I thought "hold on, computers only have 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails... is this a new standard?" then I saw 12v to the left of it and felt like dying...

Cob · 30 Jun 2008 at 23:41

I'm dying to say that it's probably a CPUID error, but, well, it's a Qtec.

mogli1990(OcUK) · 30 Jun 2008 at 23:50

oops... how stupid could I get?
when you said that I remembered there's voltage readings in the BIOS so I booted into it and checked... they're very close to 12v, 5v and 3.3v in their so not bad on QTecs behalf!
for someone who, a few years back, was fighting for the fastest 3DMark 03 and pushing the FX5800 to its limits, I've forgotten quite a lot about overclocking!
coming out of retirement slowly now I guess
ok now how do I delete this thread?

Diggsy · 1 Jul 2008 at 00:34

You could ask a mod to delete it. Oh and you're gonna have to shorten that signature, 4 lines max, otherwise the mods will delete it and leave you a nice yellow link to the FAQ

mogli1990(OcUK) · 1 Jul 2008 at 00:44

whoops... thanks man

last time i was in a forum was when I was with ClubOC I think, more than 4 years ago... it's much better being with OcUK though, a british forum, feels more at home i think

Diggsy · 1 Jul 2008 at 00:50

No worries, I fell foul of it myself when I joined! Welcome to the forums mate, hope you enjoy your time here. These lot are a pretty decent and helpful bunch.

mogli1990(OcUK) · 1 Jul 2008 at 01:18

Thanks Diggsy

I think my sig's alright now, 3 lines... stole that line-separator formatting idea from yours

Not too familiar with the mods here so I think I'll just leave this thread and let time do it's thing and for it to become forgotten about...

helmutcheese · 1 Jul 2008 at 01:40

Cant go by software, verify it with a Calibrated Multimeter.

Garyj881 · 1 Jul 2008 at 07:45

helmutcheese said:
Cant go by software, verify it with a Calibrated Multimeter.

Funny you say that, a firend at work had issues with his pc so i suggested he install speedfan to check the temps and while he was looking he found the 12V+ to be at 9.0V so i suggested he buy a new PSU, after installing the new PSU it read the same

helmutcheese · 1 Jul 2008 at 11:35

I'm sure your still his best m8.

mogli1990(OcUK) · 1 Jul 2008 at 16:13

actually i've always wanted to use a multimeter but I dont have one... does anyone know of a way to test to "clean-ness" of the power being delivered to the CPU? I know you can use an oscilloscope on the rails, but I wanted to know if anyone's done it before for the CPU?

I remember a while back there was this guy with an NF7 board who soldered a "daughterboard" with an extra 1 or 2 PWM stages onto his motherboard... made it a total of 4 or 5 stages before the power was delivered to the CPU. I think I recall him saying he managed to get his athlon from ~2400 to ~2450 with this technique... it's not amazing I know, but with the CPUs of today's age being all the more sensitive, this could actually help people going for records etc... Although I doubt I'd ever bother with something like that!