PSU/CPU queries and information required

Regards.

On PSU there is another discussion. find it in cr4.

Computer_Problem

Computer problem (Software & Programming)

<http://globalspec.ip09.com/rd/9z1z6k4691ldqsrqulcdmbcfgo4pkjkis5uvikhcllg>

A verstyle tool to check PSUs Voltage quality and more:

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

SpeedFan 4.32

If you need a tool that can change your computer's fan speeds, read the temperatures of your motherboard and your hard disk, read voltages and fan speeds and check the status of your hard disk using S.M.A.R.T. or SCSI attributes, then you came to the right place. SpeedFan is the software to go. It is fully configurable and you can create custom events to handle every situation in an automated way. SpeedFan works under Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP and Vista. SpeedFan works fine on Vista 64 bit too. The relevant driver is now signed with my digital certificate. And this all costs you absolutely nothing!

SpeedFan allows you to have a deeper view of the status of your computer. Almost every computer includes support for hardware monitoring. Accessing digital temperature sensors is really useful. If you are trying to figure out why your pc hangs when under heavy load or after some hours of usage, SpeedFan might help you to find the real cause. Very often it is a poor power supply, or an improperly installed heatsink that lead to behaviours that we tend to associate with errors from the operating system, but that are not. SpeedFan automatically searches your computer for interesting chips: the hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can expose voltages, fan speeds and temperatures. On rare occasions, the BIOS doesn't activate such features. SpeedFan tries to enable them as long as this is a safe thing to do. Not only the motherboard is searched, but also some video cards and almost every recent hard disk. SpeedFan can access status info from EIDE, SATA and even SCSI drives, showing, in a consistent way, internal data that can be used to diagnose current and future hard disk failures. This is known as S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology). At the lowest level, SpeedFan is a hardware monitor software that can access digital temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can control fan speeds according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise.

Hope of some help !!!!

I've run my athlon at 1800 at 1.5 GHz / 50C for years, only problems are dodgy connections on the IDE ribbon. My old athlon 1500 cooked when the fan cut out because nothing throttled it when it got real hot- now it's a refrigerator magnet.

I'm told Intel put throttling and temp sensing on the CPU with the P4 and Celerons of that era, so an overtemp will result in slowing down or hanging instead of a cooked CPU. Current Athlons may do so at this point as well, it's been a few years.

When I was researching the issue, I think I dug up a CPU damage threshold of 280 F from AMD's website, however system stability will go south long before then.

Your PSU question are answered in PSU manufacturer site.

I like Enemax. Keep you PSU above 50%. Don't remember exactly but I think PWM power supply don't like too low loads.

For total power use, get rating from manufacturer. For CPU multiply normal power with ratio you OCed.

Heat is bad for all electronic. Keep it as low as possible for longest life.

The closer to 100% load the PSU is, the harder for it to keep voltage stable. Any extra load will make the whole system unstable.

All clock speed are not exact. It always fluctuate. You can never measure correctly when your measuring component base it clock on the CPU clock. You need something with an external clock higher then the one you want to measure.

Pineapple

Hi all, Kalim again (the topic starter)

Many thanks for all your replies. I know electrical engineers are around, I thought they could answer these questions in technical depth.

Jaajee, moon161, Pineapple: all many for your input!

I read the link you gave but mine is more of a technical discussion of knowledge than "support". I don't require help with a computer I'm having a problem with, I can do all that stuff as long as it's Linux, BeOS and Windows.

I know the basics about computing/hardware/software/programming/overclocking etc, been into for a very long time, know most reviewers of hardware around and some company reps too, so I do have a lot of their side info. I can bench a PSU with an ATE and an Oscilloscope, replace motherboard/PSU capacitors and so on, no problem.

Yes, I've used Speedfan for long, but many times BIOS and every other software is not correct so I just use k type diodes and a DMM instead - I'm told by all specialists and electrical engineers that this is the ONLY way that's correct to measure temps and rail voltages.

The PSU manufacturers say hardly anything and most of what they say is old market speak now. They just try to advertise their own products.

I know most of the latest on PSUs aswell out there (online) but the questions I asked were to get technical and in-depth info on matters by people who know more than me and about topics that I don't know fully nor well.

I'd love some in-depth and electrical engineer advice thanks, or by anyone who knows more in-depth about my queries. So far what's covered is within my knowledge.

Appreciate all the help and will wait for more.

Thanks all anyway.