"Not enough AMPs on 12v rail"

[Fyrsign]

Okay... After spending far too much time on the MSI forums trying to find solutions to the handful of problems my Athlon64 3000+ system has been experiencing, I have managed to become EXTREMELY insecure about my choice of power supplies... Namely a Fortron 530w

Yes, I think that the degree to which the forum moderators there DEMAND your max output levels before they post responses, and how frequently EVERYTHING is blamed on "not enough amps on your 12v rail" is completely absurd... Sure, it starts of logically enough... System won't post? Not enough amps on your 12v rail... Frequency out of range error? Not enough Amps on the 12v rail... C:\winnt\system32\config\system.ced corruption error? Not enough amps on your 12v rail... Bad breath and baldness? Not enough amps on your 12v rail...

Unfortunately, being told OVER AND OVER that 18a on the 12v rail is marginal at BEST, and that "You need at least 20a just to boot" (which is a blatant lie) does begin to get to you... Especially in light of the fact that my Radeon 9800 Pro likes to just stop working in the middle of a game (system appears to lock up, but doesn't reboot... After shutting off recovery option on the card I at least got the "Frequency out of range error), I am having DAILY system32\config\system.ced and system32\config\software corruption issues at reboot (although, for some reason, my wifes identicle system stopped having these issues about 2 days ago while mine is still choking every single day)...

You start to wonder if, in fact, my power supply is causing these problems...

So truly... Is 18a on the 12v rail just inadequate?

I am not some amateur-crastinator... I am a PRO-crastinator!

 

[Crashman]

First of all, Fortron rates their "max" as max CONTINUOUS for a MTBF of 11 years! And they get that number as 70% of the absolute max, aka peak. Your 12v rail puts out over 20A, your probablem is probably related to your choice of platform.

VIA chipsets have ALWAYS had corruption issues, the A64 has memory issues using VIA chipsets, perhaps if you try setting slower latency values, etc, you'll get stable.

It's all a scam really, testers will often tell you how fast something is without telling you how unstable it is. Also there are a lot of software factors involved, they can't possibly test every possible configuration. And a lot of sites will actually downplay problems in order to keep suppliers/advertizers happy.

I'll put it to you this way: A Fortron 350W unit powered my 2.6C at 3.2GHz with incredibly high core voltage (using huge power) on my P4C800-E Deluxe with several drives including a lot of SCSI hardware, a full compliment of cards, 1GB of highly overvolted PC4000, etc. My PC draws an ABSURD amount of power...yet the Fortron 350W was enough.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Oh, BTW, an inadequacy on the 12v rail will result in either the power supply shutting off, or the voltage dropping by an unusual amount. If you haven't seen this behavior, you know people are talking out the wrong hole.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[addiarmadar]

I have to agree with crashman on this one. The solutions out there for the A64 chips have not been of quality especially the ram. You REALLY have to lossen the timmings or you will get random missing reg entries or files. Both VIA and Nforce3 suck at this..

Barton 2500+ @ 2200mhz (10x220 vcore @ 1.8)
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)