Hi,

1) My PSU is 400 Watts.

2) The latest hardware additions have marginal problems. I.e. SEDNA - PCI Express mSATA III (6G) SSD Adapter with 1 SATA III Port. A) The mSATA III
(6G) SSD is 100% reliable. B) SATA III Port connected to a new SSD is 100% unreliable.

Questions: 1) Could the unreliability be connected to something other than PSU?
2) Would a 500W PSU solve the problem, or
3) Would 600W be a better idea?

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Norm Why wrote:

Hi,

1) My PSU is 400 Watts.

2) The latest hardware additions have marginal problems. I.e. SEDNA - PCI Express mSATA III (6G) SSD Adapter with 1 SATA III Port. A) The mSATA III (6G) SSD is 100% reliable. B) SATA III Port connected to a new SSD is 100% unreliable.

Questions: 1) Could the unreliability be connected to something other than PSU?
2) Would a 500W PSU solve the problem, or
3) Would 600W be a better idea?

A hard drive draws 5W to 12W or so, just a ballpark figure.

A SATA SSD draws 3.5W from the 5V rail.

The SATA controller card, you would allocate 1W for the main chip.

When a controller card has no heatsink on the main chip, the
main chip is then power constrained and no more than 1 watt or
2 watts could be dissipated at a decent range of room temps.

*******

There's nothing wrong with suspecting the 400W supply has a
defect and must be replaced with another 400W supply. But
not a lot is to be gained from bumping the power, since
that just gives more 12V current capability.

Let's draw some pretend Seasonic-brand PSUs...

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 460W total max
12V @ 30A 360W /

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 580W total max
12V @ 40A 480W /

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 700W total max
12V @ 50A 600W /

Every Newegg advert for a PSU, shows a picture of the
supply label on the side, so you can plot these trends
for your own self.

The 12V powers a hard drive motor, at maybe 12V @ 0.8A idle spin current.

But we're not particularly gaining on the lower rails,
because the Seasonics are pretty well all double-conversion
and use a separate power board for the 3.3V/5V combined supply.
Any supply with "80+ efficiency" labeling, is double forward
conversion.

Even if I bought a 1200W modern supply, it would not
offer enough low-rails power to run my old AthlonXP processor
and NForce2 chipset. If you need to buy a PSU for an
antique computer, it's harder to get what you need to
finish the project.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

1) My PSU is 400 Watts.

2) The latest hardware additions have marginal problems. I.e. SEDNA - PCI
Express mSATA III (6G) SSD Adapter with 1 SATA III Port. A) The mSATA III
(6G) SSD is 100% reliable. B) SATA III Port connected to a new SSD is
100% unreliable.

Questions: 1) Could the unreliability be connected to something other
than PSU?
2) Would a 500W PSU solve the problem, or
3) Would 600W be a better idea?

A hard drive draws 5W to 12W or so, just a ballpark figure.

A SATA SSD draws 3.5W from the 5V rail.

The SATA controller card, you would allocate 1W for the main chip.

When a controller card has no heatsink on the main chip, the
main chip is then power constrained and no more than 1 watt or
2 watts could be dissipated at a decent range of room temps.

*******

There's nothing wrong with suspecting the 400W supply has a
defect and must be replaced with another 400W supply. But
not a lot is to be gained from bumping the power, since
that just gives more 12V current capability.

Let's draw some pretend Seasonic-brand PSUs...

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 460W total max
12V @ 30A 360W /

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 580W total max
12V @ 40A 480W /

3.3V @ 20A \____ no more than 100W combined \
5V @ 20A / \___ 700W total max
12V @ 50A 600W /

Every Newegg advert for a PSU, shows a picture of the
supply label on the side, so you can plot these trends
for your own self.

The 12V powers a hard drive motor, at maybe 12V @ 0.8A idle spin current.

But we're not particularly gaining on the lower rails,
because the Seasonics are pretty well all double-conversion
and use a separate power board for the 3.3V/5V combined supply.
Any supply with "80+ efficiency" labeling, is double forward
conversion.

Even if I bought a 1200W modern supply, it would not
offer enough low-rails power to run my old AthlonXP processor
and NForce2 chipset. If you need to buy a PSU for an
antique computer, it's harder to get what you need to
finish the project.

Paul

Thanks Paul,

These voltages are from HWMonitor:

Hardware Monitors -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hardware monitor ITE IT87
Voltage 0 1.07 Volts [0x43] (CPU VCORE)
Voltage 1 1.81 Volts [0x71] (DDR)
Voltage 2 2.98 Volts [0xBA] (+3.3V)
Voltage 3 4.70 Volts [0xAF] (+5V)
Voltage 7 12.54 Volts [0xC4] (+12V)
Voltage 8 3.09 Volts [0xC1] (VBAT)

All voltages are below expectations except for DDR (12 GB RAM works good)
and +12V (there is just one HDD).
Is there an explanation? Is there mitigation?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Norm Why wrote:

Thanks Paul,

These voltages are from HWMonitor:

Hardware Monitors -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hardware monitor ITE IT87
Voltage 0 1.07 Volts [0x43] (CPU VCORE)
Voltage 1 1.81 Volts [0x71] (DDR)
Voltage 2 2.98 Volts [0xBA] (+3.3V)
Voltage 3 4.70 Volts [0xAF] (+5V)
Voltage 7 12.54 Volts [0xC4] (+12V)
Voltage 8 3.09 Volts [0xC1] (VBAT)

All voltages are below expectations except for DDR (12 GB RAM works good)
and +12V (there is just one HDD).
Is there an explanation? Is there mitigation?

I've had reason to check these myself.

The voltages read low in Windows. Using Speedfan.

VCore 1.10V
+12V 11.25V <=== Likely to be 12V1 and 12V2
AVCC 3.25V
Vcore 1.10V
+3.3V 3.25V
+5.0V 4.92V
+12V 11.93V

The voltages read low in Linux. LM-Sensors package, "sensors" command

mint@mint:~$ sensors

atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: 1.07 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
+3.3 Voltage: 3.25 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5 Voltage: 4.92 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12 Voltage: 11.93 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 1406 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CHASSIS1 FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CHASSIS2 FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
POWER FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +42.0°C (high = +35.0°C, crit = +90.0°C)
MB Temperature: +30.0°C (high = +30.0°C, crit = +90.0°C)

A check with a multimeter (3.5 digit) gives

12.04mint@mint:~$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +42.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +35.0°C (high = +78.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nouveau-pci-0200
Adapter: PCI adapter
GPU core: 1.20 V (min = +1.20 V, max = +1.20 V)
temp1: +42.0°C (high = +95.0°C, hyst = +3.0°C)
(crit = +130.0°C, hyst = +2.0°C)
(emerg = +135.0°C, hyst = +5.0°C)

atk0110-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
Vcore Voltage: 1.07 V (min = +0.85 V, max = +1.60 V)
+3.3 Voltage: 3.25 V (min = +2.97 V, max = +3.63 V)
+5 Voltage: 4.92 V (min = +4.50 V, max = +5.50 V)
+12 Voltage: 11.93 V (min = +10.20 V, max = +13.80 V)
CPU FAN Speed: 1406 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CHASSIS1 FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CHASSIS2 FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
POWER FAN Speed: 0 RPM (min = 600 RPM, max = 7200 RPM)
CPU Temperature: +42.0°C (high = +35.0°C, crit = +90.0°C)
MB Temperature: +30.0°C (high = +30.0°C, crit = +90.0°C)

Multimeter, 3.5 digit, Molex disk drive cable

12.04V 5.06V

And those are very close to the correct values.

Remember that the ADC on the SuperIO making the voltage
measurements, may be an 8 bit ADC with 16mv step size.
That is 256 codes time 16mv or 4.096V max input voltage.
The SuperIO uses scaling resistors, to take the 12V, measure
it as a 16V full scale signal, and get about 3V or so at
the ADC input terminals. The ACPI table in the BIOS is set
up by Asus engineers, to represent the choice of the two
resistors in the voltage divider for 12V.

At one time, people used to check the scaling resistors themselves,
and report this to the author of MBM5 or similar. Then later, the
process was automated. If an Asus engineer makes a mistake, then
the voltage you read out could be permanently low-ball. That's one
of the dangers of the factory doing it. The resistors could even have
a 5% tolerance, for all we know. Who would be buying half-percent
(very accurate) resistors for such a task ?

It would be great if there was a "calibration procedure" during the
two-minute functional test, but that stretches credulity. There is
a lot to do in two minutes, such as make sure the PCI Express
slots work, and little time for frippery. At one time, the Asus
factory used to make five million motherboards per month. It's
less now. That means, every day, a shitload of motherboards have
to go through the two-minute functional test.

Paul

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