Questions about power supply voltages

[BlackhawksFan]

Any of you techies with electrical expertise care to educate me about voltages?

I am concerned that my file server's power supply is pushing too much. I'm planning on getting another case with additional fans, etc. Wondering if I really need a 400w+ power supply.

This system has: celery 566, abit bh6, 4 hdds, 2 promise ultra 100 controllers, nic, ati Expert 98 agp card, enermax case fan

How much is too much + or - for the hot and ground rails? Right now the -12v is about .3 under, is that too low for a ground?

Enermax 350W
MBM 5 stats:

Core 0 1.54v
Core 1 1.50v

+3.3v: 3.38v
+5v: 5.19v
-5v: 5.26v
+12v: 12.10v
-12v: 11.71v


I was using an Antec PP303X 300w supply before, with these results:

Core 0 1.54v
Core 1 1.50v

+3.3v: 3.36v
+5v: 5.03v
-5v: 4.99v
+12v: 11.55v
-12v: 11.16v

 

[MassiveUnit]

As long as you are not more than + or - about 5% of your rated voltage (on your 12V line you shouldn't go below 11.4V or above 12.6V) any of your rails you should be fine. Also, the voltage monitors in your BIOS and in Windows can lie, i trust nothing but a digital multimeter, which a lot of people don't have, so use the software monitoring as a general guide, but don't rely on it absolutely. I don't think you'll need a 400W+ power supply for what you have, since it's really not sucking too much juice from what i can see (those 4 hd's don't suck too awful much). You should be more than good on the enermax.

 

[bozo1]

And ignore the - voltage rails. They aren't used anymore.