3.3v tolerances

[Kenazo]

I have a cheapo 350 watt psu that my Soltek hardware monitor says is putting out around 3.10 volts when it should be 3.3v, is this going to be a huge problem for computer stability? It should still be on warranty, so I'm just wondering if it's worth sending back, or should it be alright. The -12v is a little off too, usually being close to -12.8v.

 

[beaconengr]

The generally accepted tolerance for voltages for power supplies is 5% and both of your voltages are off more than that. Since 5% is a very liberal tolerance in my opinion anything outside of this simply is not acceptable.
There is no way i would use a power supply with these readings.

 

[Kenazo]

are the hardware monitoring software accurate? Or is there a chance that the voltages are being detected incorrectly?

 

[lenjack]

A 5% tolerance would be 3.135 to 3.465. For -12 it would be 11.4 to 12.6. The -12 line is not used in modern computers. If you can, measure the volages directly with a meter.

 

[hmsrolst]

I think it depends on the overall system configuration. I have a P2B-DS based system with dual PIII 1Ghz's, two SCSI hard drives, and three optical drives. It gets only 3.21 volts (which is a common problem with this board). With 768MB of RAM, everything works fine. With 1GB of RAM, the 2nd hard drive is not detected. From the 2cpu.com forum, I know others have had similar problems.