HELP: Enermax PSU EG301P-VB: only 4.6V @ +5V output

[QTPie]

The 300W PSU came with Enermax case.

MB Iwill KK-266 with TBird 1.2GHz @1.4GHz
HDDs: 7.2K SCSI, 2 Seagate 80GB, 1 Maxtor 160GB
CD Drive: Unplugged
Video: GF2 GTS
768MB SDRAM

I wasn't aware of the output voltage values until I installed Motherboard Monitor recently.
Sometimes, +5V was dropped down to 4.39V. Max value for it was only 4.65V.

System loaded with WinXP crashed sometimes at full load.

Anyone has any idea why the +5v is out of spec more than 10% ?

 

[egale]

It is probably either a faulty power supply or sensor on the motherboard. Unless you have the equipment to actually test the output, the easiest thing to do is replace the power supply first and if that doesn't clear it up, it is probably the motherboard.

 

[QTPie]

hmm... I'll check the output voltages with the DMM later.

 

[McCarthy]

It's a combination problem. Enermax had (has?) a lot of problem with the 5v being low and getting lower over time in their 300/350w series. Also the KK-266 had the power connector far from the voltage regulators which leads to futher voltage dropoff. Something that makes me cringe every time I read a review saying the ATX power plug is in an 'inconvenient' place without regard to how it actually affects how the system works rather than how pretty it looks in a windowed case or the even less valid arguement about restricting air flow.

In my case (the 350w paired with a KK-266-R) it actually burned the plug around the 5v terminals on the ATX plug and the reported voltages dropped to 4.18 before the system quit booting. Please report back what the DMM says, my cheap MM said the 5v was just a little low off a spare molex I checked at, not as low as reported in bios, but I still attribute that to the long traces...think Epox boards of the same era had a similar problem.

 

[QTPie]

McCarthy, thank you very much for your input.
I just took measurements from the molex connector. What a surprise!
+5V: 5.09V
+12: 13.09V
They're high. Could be my el cheapo DMM is not accurate
However, the BIOS sensor and MBM5 measured around 4.51V and 12.25V