Voltage fluctuations Barton 2500+

WallyKid

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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I have a highpower 340w power supply, it has 15A - 12v . On the Monitoring software that comes with Abit NF7, it shows the voltage fluctuate quite a little bit when i kick of Prime95. I am running at 11X215 at 1.70 volt, and the monitor shows 1.66 to 1.68 during idle, however, after i kick off Prime95, it goes as low as 1.63 and up back to 1.68...Is this normal? And my Prime95 is failing after 2 mins. I am uping the voltage again to 1.75 to see if it works. Hopefully it does.
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
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I'd upgrade the PSU. My 350W Fortron was causing massive fluctuations when I was overclocking the snot out of a Duron last night.
 

WallyKid

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
I'd upgrade the PSU. My 350W Fortron was causing massive fluctuations when I was overclocking the snot out of a Duron last night.

So you would agree that my fluatuation is actually a big one?

Got a Antec Truepower 430w Power supply....unfortunately, the fluatuation seems to be the same.....i set it at 1.75volt, and it fluatuate to about 1.68volt when i kick off prime95. But this time it takes about 4 mins before prime actually fails. So i guess i have hit my limit. Going to set it to 1.8v this time, and i guess that will be end of testing.
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
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Yeah, that's a pretty big dip. Mine was going from 1.84V down to 1.75V (a bit lower at times) and causing Prime95 to error. Try unplugging your CD-ROM drives and any spare hard drives and see if it fluctuates less then. If so, your PSU is too weak.
 

WallyKid

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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I guess 11X210 is a no go for me. I think its is getting stable at 11x208, which is 2288mhz. However it is only at 1.6v, which is pretty good for me. I think i'm going to return the hyperx Kingston ram i got ...which is PC4000 ...the best buy deal, and get this one Mushkin and it is only 80 bucks shipped for 512mb.
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
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Originally posted by: WallyKid
I guess 11X210 is a no go for me. I think its is getting stable at 11x208, which is 2288mhz. However it is only at 1.6v, which is pretty good for me. I think i'm going to return the hyperx Kingston ram i got ...which is PC4000 ...the best buy deal, and get this one Mushkin and it is only 80 bucks shipped for 512mb.
I have that HyperX, and mine seems to be great stuff.
 

bhanson

Golden Member
Jan 16, 2004
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I have a 350watt PSU with 12A - 12V, using my ASUS monitoring software, mine ranges from 1.648 to 1.712 when running Prime. It usualy stablizes out at 1.664, and it's at 1.664 when not running prime. Should I get a new PSU as well?
 

WallyKid

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
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if you don't have a problem then, no you should not. In my case, my power supply is fine, i got an ANTEC 430w power supply to test it out, and it fluctuates just as much, and so i know that power supply is not the problem. I think its the hyperx pc4000 i have. It seems that it is not able to do 11X211 at all...it pass the CPU test, not the memory test, therefore fails the torture test. I get memory dump all the time, therefore which leads me to think that my memory is not doing too good. even at 211 only, which it is rated at 216 i believe PC4000 means. Well, i'm going to get mushkin, and man then one that i'm trying to get is out of stock.
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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If you want to test your ram, drop your multiplier way down and the FSB way up. Your CPU could be the limmiting factor.
You have to do these things in stages to confirm each components max performance. You can't expect it all at once.
An 11x215 overclock on a 2500+ Barton is expecting alot, a hell of alot, even at 1.75v. You may find you are game stable at those settings, but run prime, and bang, errors reported in less than a minute.

The power fluctuation problem could actually be with your motherboard, as the PSU supplies regulated power to it, and the motherboard also regulates it and supplies it to the board components.

I would be memtesting my ram at a low multiplier and high FSB speed that places the sum-total equal to the actual rated CPU speed. That way, you are not overclocking the CPU, but the ram itself. Any problems there point the finger at fault directly at the ram.