Question How do I monitor a low quality PSU (with HWinfo)?

[Redsama]

I've got HWinfo set up and I'm looking at the 3.3V, 5V, and 12V rails. How much of a deviancy should I set the alert to? Is there anything else I should monitor?

PSU I'm using is EVGA 500W W1 which I see is Tier D on LTT Forum's PSU tier list . Gonna get a better PSU soon but I still wanna keep an eye on this til then.

Specs:
GPU: 1660Ti Zotac AMP
CPU: i5 4690K @ 4.6GHz (1.3V)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 GAMING
RAM: G Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBXL (4GBx2) & Team Group Vulcan-1600 (4GBx2)
Storage: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB, Western Digital Blue SSD 1TB, Seagate HDD 1TB

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

EVGA 500W W1 ...Horrible quality , I wouldn't even use it.

 

[dorsai]

Run HWinfo and then put a 100 % load on the system to see how far the voltages drop...there are specs online for the proper output range on an ATX psu.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Monitor it in the BIOS , software won't be accurate.

 

[nostall]

Just general information forRedsama;

PSU Tolerance Table
Voltage Rail	Tolerance	Minimum Voltage	Maximum Voltage
+3.3VDC	± 5%	+3.135 VDC	+3.465 VDC
+5VDC	± 5%	+4.750 VDC	+5.250 VDC
+5VSB	± 5%	+4.750 VDC	+5.250 VDC
-5VDC (if used)	± 10%	-4.500 VDC	-5.500 VDC
+12VDC	± 5%	+11.400 VDC	+12.600 VDC
-12VDC	± 10%	-10.800 VDC	- 13.200 VDC

I have been told by others with more experience then myself that 10% + or - can be tolerated by most components. Dark Lord of Tech is correct, most accurate measurement is in the monitoring section of the BIOS.

 

[Redsama]

This is what I have for a days worth of usage: (current/min/max/average)

Monitor it in the BIOS , software won't be accurate.

And here's what shows on my bios:

Thank you for the info, nostall! I set my alerts to it.

 

[Redsama]

Huh that's weird. I just noticed my overclock settings all reset. Don't know how long ago that happened...

 

[sizzling]

All this might be achieving is a false sense of security. It doesn’t tell you how clean the supply is and that impacts component life, it may not tell you if the psu is going to fail. It doesn’t hurt to monitor the voltages but it’s also of limited use.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yeah, there's a lot more than voltage regulation and you can hardly sit and watch it in BIOS while using it otherwise. BIOS isn't going to tell you about ripple or anything like that.

 

[Redsama]

Yeah, there's a lot more than voltage regulation

What else do you think I should monitor?

 

[DSzymborski]

What else do you think I should monitor?

Unless you buy a load tester than will cost 25 times that of a good PSU, there's nothing to monitor. The solution for a low quality PSU isn't to watch it, it's to not use it at all. By the time it goes out of spec, your components may already be dead.