psu's in general

[baz55]

greetings folks!
having had a few problems that have turned out to be down to defective or cheap psu's, i could do with a bit of group intervention re a couple of questions please.
firstly, is there a software prog that will show deviations on power rails over a period? say 24hours, to enable better testing?
how accurate is mbm5 for judging the state of your psu? is there a better one?
thirdly, i have been cordially invited to go to set-up on booting and found the -5vdc flashing. what are the relative importances of -12v; -5v etc.?
any link to explain in depth would also be welcome
thanks in advance
baz

 

[Iesus]

Well MBM5 is Ok if the sensor chips on the MBM are OK. But from my experince the only real acurate voltage checker is the multimeter.
Just one example what happend to me.: MBM was showing 11,37V on 12V, while I was waiting for replacement, I used an Antec 350W, where MBM again showed below 11,5V, so i checked it with a multimeter and got a result of ~12,10V under full load. This just shows you not to beleive in everthing that MBM5 shows cause your sensor chips coud read faulty.

 

[baz55]

thanks for the input iesus; i have just bougt a new vantec 400; enough for my old p3 system and a couple of hd/cds, and the +12v is down on 11.67 according to mbm5. not impossible; new doesn't mean good! and not under load of course, but the same was happening with the old psu...the problem with using m/meters is that they don't cover intermittant fluctuations; hence i was looking for a long-period test method. however, i shall get the m/meter out and check the new psu. i also take your point about the accuracy of the sensor chip.