3.3v

Zyox

Ok so I was playing WoW yesterday (keeps my graphics card and CPU nicely
jammed up at full speed most times) and all of a sudden I get this beep
beep beep from my motherboard monitorign software in Windows.

Wtf goes zyox, it can't be CPU temp, I've got a heatsink on there
bigger than yore ma's willy. It wasn't, it was my 3.3v line thingie
(I'm still confused as to what that is but from what I can piece together
it's the voltage going to AGP card) going out of it's allowed 10%
threshold. It was actually dropping to about 2.9v

Now exiting out of WoW (minimizing really, so CPU was still 90%ish but GFX not in use at all) made it go back to the normal.
At the begining I went "wtf this is lies" and ignored it. Then my picture started to warble on the screen like there was mobile phone interference
except prolonged and quite scary.

I've never even heard of a dropping 3.3v thing, and letting the pc "have
a rest" overnight did nothing. _Straight_ back into WoW this morning
to test it caused it to _instantly_ start dropping.

I'm obviously worried about this, something is up the ****ter, has anyone
any clues before I go out and replace my graphics card (which will lead to
a new motherboard, cpu, ram, hard drive - which I did not want to do
for another few months yet).

RonanH

Most likely a problem with your PSU not being able to deliver the juice to the AGP bus. Try a better psu and see if it solves the problem.

Zyox

Titanium 450w PSU, doesn't feel like something's wrong there. It's been working fine for aaaaaaaaages now. Then bam yesterday.

po0k

Could be noise on the mains.

Also, what version agp card you using?

3.3V is used by the motherboard for a few things, not just the AGP card. The CPU and memory will also be affected by it.

Zyox

I thought that too, but was told then that 3.3v was mainly just for AGP and the 5v was the CPU and memory.

It's also only affected when the AGP card is under heavy load, making me think it's most likely something to do with that

AGP version, not a clue, its a 4X GeForce4 ti4600 card on an Asus A7v333 mobo.

BloodBath

Strange. Either your psu is on the way out or it's always been like this without you knowing. It is possible to raise these voltage rails in a lot of psu's if you know how. I was having trouble with my 12v rail drooping when I overclocked so I was looking for a way to remedy the problem without having to splash out on a new psu. I found out that most decent psu's have adjustabl pot's inside them. The pot's are basically small screw like dials that turn to raise or lower the voltage to the rails. There are 2 of them. One for the 3.3v rail and one for the 12v and 5v rail combined. I could only raise mine 10% because I was raising the 5v line as well but you can go as high as you need to get it back to 3.3. I can't tell you exactly where they are as it's different for every psu. I just hope for your sake it's not ias hard to get to as mine was.

This is a daunting task. You will have to open your psu to do this. Make sure it is plugged out, then open it and find the pots. Do not touch the capacitors as they can still have enough power to give you a very nasty shock. That's the easy part. You will need a multi meter to do the hard part. Once you locate the pots, plug your psu back into your pc. Turn it on, turn your pc on. The 3.3v rail can be obtained from any molex. You need to put the red multimeter connection into the blue molex connection and the black into either of the 2 black molex connections. You can now adjust the pot while monitoring the voltage. Keep in mind not to go over 10% of 3.3v. Also be extra careful as your working with a live open psu.


This sounds like a very dangerous task and your probably not going to want to do it but it is an option. I did it, but then again, I am insane.


BloodBath

Zyox

Nah feck that

I think I'll try reinserting the card and if that fails I'm gonna underclock my CPU.

Zyox

K well I tired both and cleaning card etc. Nothing worked.
Screen wooziness got really bad tonight.

I'm going to try a differnt GFX card in there tomorrow, then PSU if that doesnt work.
If all of those fail it's the mobo, but I have a strong feeling it's the graphics card.

fatmander

Might be completely useless informaton, but only AGP1x runs 3.3 Volt cards, all the rest(AGP2x,4x,8x) use 1.5V, maby it's supplied down the same lines as 3.3V,

methinks its the power supply

confused...

po0k

Buy a Fortron.

vishal

giving unclean power to your components will damage them. it does sound like you need a new psu.

Zyox

Tested different GFX card, same problem.
Tested different (and working fine) PSU, same problem.

Have mailed Asus about it, because I can only think it's the motherboard. Hopefully they'll replace as it's still under warranty.

Anyone got any other ideas?
Thanks for help so far guys, its a fekcing weird problem, haven't heard of anyone who's had it yet.