Voltages and Power Supply

[ghosty]

I wasn't sure if I should put this topic in this forum but I couldn't find anywhere else it fit.

Anyways I was wondering if someone could give me a lay down on voltages and exactly what they mean..etc

Such as the vcore, +3.3, +5, +12, -12, 5Vsb, Vbat.

These are all in my hardware monitor and I am sure, besides the fact that they are voltages, what they are.. a quick explaination would definatly help!

Thanks.

 

[RossGr]

Vcore is the voltage at which your CPU operates, this voltage is generated by regulators on the mother board. The Mobo regulators are fed by 3.3V (some may use 5V) which is generated by your Power supply. 3.3V and 5V are used by the mother board digital circiutry. +/- 12 V is used by Fans and your harddrive. All of these DC voltages are generated by the power supply and fed to the motherboard though a 20 pin connector. IF you see any of these voltages fluxuating very much or they are consistantly greater then 10% away from the specifed value you may need a bigger power supply (higher wattage). Stable unchanging voltages are good, even if they are a bit low (but not more then 10%) as long as they are not "bouncing" arround you should be fine.

 

[Mark R]

Mobo regulators are fed by 3.3V (some may use 5V) which is generated by your Power supply

Just a minor update - many new motherboards (and all Pentium 4 boards) power the CPU regulator from 12V.

+5V: used by most general electronics in your PC (usually excludes the CPU), disk drives, CD-ROM etc.
+12V: used for motors (e.g. fans, disk drives/CD-ROM etc.) and for CPU on most recent motherboards.
+3.3: used for RAM, AGP and PCI cards on some motherboards.

-5V: Used by some sound/graphics cards
-12V: Used by serial (COM) ports

5Vsb: 'Always on' supply, for things like the power-button and for network cards which support (wake-on-LAN)

Vbat: Battery voltage - not used on desktop PCs.