Motherboard or PSU problem?(Asus anti surge related)

[XFA24]

Good day,

just recently, my computer kept randomly shutting down due to the asus anti surge feature and so I thought google might have the answer. Some articles say it might be the PSU starting to fail, some say due to bad wiring, some say motherboard failure and some even say that the anti surge feature is just buggy so turning it off would be the solution. I dont want to risk my other components by turning off the anti surge feature so I tried to observe the behavior of the power supply via the bios voltage monitoring. It turns out that on the 12V rail, the motherboard was receiving more than the +- 5% tolerance(spiking at 13-15V). Should i buy a new power supply or should i replace my motherboard?

My power supply is about 4 years old now and it is a decent Seasonic M12II 620W unit
while my motherboard and processor is 3 years old(under my signature is my computer specs)

my computer just randomly shuts down in just about any application. e.g. google chrome, ms word, league of legends, GTA V, and even on idle where there are no other applications opened

attached is a photo of the 12V rail bios voltage monitoring



Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

 

[sykozis]

voltage readings in the bios are not 100% accurate. You need to connect a multi-meter and verify the voltage on the 12V rail. If it's actually spiking that high, you have a problem and it's most likely PSU related.

 

[XFA24]

voltage readings in the bios are not 100% accurate. You need to connect a multi-meter and verify the voltage on the 12V rail. If it's actually spiking that high, you have a problem and it's most likely PSU related.

actually, it happens quite randomly. sometimes its in constant 12.1V, meaning I have to wait quite some time to get a high reading

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Your 12v + rail is too far out of spec.​

 

[XFA24]

voltage readings in the bios are not 100% accurate. You need to connect a multi-meter and verify the voltage on the 12V rail. If it's actually spiking that high, you have a problem and it's most likely PSU related.

okay so i just tested my power supply with a multimeter and all seems fine. I can see what you're saying that there is inaccuracy on the bios readings(for example, i got 12.192V in the bios while in the multimeter i got 12.05V). I will be testing again if the random shutdowns would occur once more

 

[XFA24]

Your 12v + rail is too far out of spec.​

The only time I see the 12V spikes are when the anti surge occurs and when I get the chance to boot up, it's at constant 12.192V

 

[turkey3_scratch]

voltage readings in the bios are not 100% accurate. You need to connect a multi-meter and verify the voltage on the 12V rail. If it's actually spiking that high, you have a problem and it's most likely PSU related.

okay so i just tested my power supply with a multimeter and all seems fine. I can see what you're saying that there is inaccuracy on the bios readings(for example, i got 12.192V in the bios while in the multimeter i got 12.05V). I will be testing again if the random shutdowns would occur once more

If it's fine with the multimeter I'd maybe just turn anti-surge off. If you turn anti-surge off and there's actually a problem you would know because your computer will freeze and other stuff like that, but if everything is fine you can be confident it's just a false alarm.

 

[XFA24]

voltage readings in the bios are not 100% accurate. You need to connect a multi-meter and verify the voltage on the 12V rail. If it's actually spiking that high, you have a problem and it's most likely PSU related.

okay so i just tested my power supply with a multimeter and all seems fine. I can see what you're saying that there is inaccuracy on the bios readings(for example, i got 12.192V in the bios while in the multimeter i got 12.05V). I will be testing again if the random shutdowns would occur once more

If it's fine with the multimeter I'd maybe just turn anti-surge off. If you turn anti-surge off and there's actually a problem you would know because your computer will freeze and other stuff like that, but if everything is fine you can be confident it's just a false alarm.

I just turned off the anti surge support, if in any case that there was an overvolt on the 12V rail, would the motherboard just shutdown itself?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

just recently, my computer kept randomly shutting down due to the asus anti surge ............. he is HAVING ISSUES , so probably has a PSU power issue , even if it's random.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It's obviously erratic since the multimeter showed much differing numbers than the BIOS.

 

[XFA24]

would it be best if I replace my power supply?

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I wouldn't. Seems like a waste of money for a non-problem to me. You saw how the multimeter readings differed from the bios. Anti-surge gos by the BIOS readings.

I'd turn it off and if you have PC problems with it off maybe look into a new PSU. If you have no problems than the PSU should be fine.

 

[XFA24]

I wouldn't. Seems like a waste of money for a non-problem to me. You saw how the multimeter readings differed from the bios. Anti-surge gos by the BIOS readings.

I'd turn it off and if you have PC problems with it off maybe look into a new PSU. If you have no problems than the PSU should be fine.

okay sure but are these erratic readings normal for 3 year old motherboards?

 

[sykozis]

I wouldn't. Seems like a waste of money for a non-problem to me. You saw how the multimeter readings differed from the bios. Anti-surge gos by the BIOS readings.

I'd turn it off and if you have PC problems with it off maybe look into a new PSU. If you have no problems than the PSU should be fine.

okay sure but are these erratic readings normal for 3 year old motherboards?

If the problem is intermittent, leave the multi-meter connected until the problem occurs again. If the voltage is actually spiking that high, we need to find out and fix it. While bios voltage readings are usually inaccurate, they're typically within the acceptable margin of error. If the anti-surge feature has been turned on since day 1 and this problem only recently appeared without any major hardware changes or firmware updates, I'd suspect the PSU is faulty as SR-71 suggested.

 

[XFA24]

I wouldn't. Seems like a waste of money for a non-problem to me. You saw how the multimeter readings differed from the bios. Anti-surge gos by the BIOS readings.

I'd turn it off and if you have PC problems with it off maybe look into a new PSU. If you have no problems than the PSU should be fine.

okay sure but are these erratic readings normal for 3 year old motherboards?

If the problem is intermittent, leave the multi-meter connected until the problem occurs again. If the voltage is actually spiking that high, we need to find out and fix it. While bios voltage readings are usually inaccurate, they're typically within the acceptable margin of error. If the anti-surge feature has been turned on since day 1 and this problem only recently appeared without any major hardware changes or firmware updates, I'd suspect the PSU is faulty as SR-71 suggested.

It might take long time to to detect that random spike, so leaving it on the multimeter is not an option, and yes the anti surge feature was on since day 1, the motherboard is still running on factory bios firmware, and no hardware change at all

okay ill just buy another power supply then

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I don't think you are making a wise decision.

 

[XFA24]

I don't think you are making a wise decision.

Im currently monitoring it for about more than 6 hours now and have not yet gotten any spikes, would leave it on until morning(it's 12MN here atm). perhaps if by next week no spikes would occur and no sudden crashes while the anti surge is off then I see no need to replace it