ASUS Anti-Surge Megathread

[STRMfrmXMN]

If you have an ASUS motherboard then chances are, at some point while you've used the motherboard you've seen an error message similar to this.

Quote

Power supply surges detected during the previous power on.

ASUS Anti-Surge was triggered to protect system from unstable power supply unit!

This can happen for a number of reasons. It can legitimately be correct in saying that you have a faulty PSU, however, in order to determine this it must be capable of accurately determining voltages of the rails of your power supply. 

 

This is literally impossible without a multimeter or similar hardware. 

 

ASUS Anti-Surge is voltage reading through software which, in case you haven't gathered already, is not possible. Thus, having such a feature with your motherboard can get rather annoying! Here are some things I have seen trigger Anti-Surge in the several systems I have built.

 

• Turning off the lights in the room the PC was being used in.
• Shorting the motherboard to start it.
• A failing Corsair AX750.
• Running a GPU off of molex adapters.
• CPU overclocking on various good/bad voltages.
• Disabling Intel Speedstep.

Now only one of these I can see being really useful and that is that particular AX750 which was dying. However, there are several signs a PSU is dying, none of which require Anti-Surge to be recognized, such as the system not booting into Windows (or perhaps BSODing when it boots to the desktop) with a GPU installed, a system not booting in a similar fashion with a desktop hard drive installed when it will boot with an SSD or 2.5" drive, the fan not running ever, the wires melting, obvious scary noises, etc. Most PSUs failures tend to happen in a similar fashion and you do not need buggy software to tell you this, even though Anti-Surge would probably trigger if you had a failing PSU. That said, it wouldn't likely save your hardware as a PSU will generally drop out of PWR_OK or trigger Short-Circuit protection and shut itself down. Generally, contrary to popular belief, even a crappy PSU generally won't take out your hardware when it dies unless it goes up in a fireball. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

 

So the solution? Ignore Anti-Surge and AIDA64 and most other software voltage reading (minus software like Corsair Link which depends on hardware in your PSU to function and is generally very accurate) and buy a multimeter (or a $2000 load tester) if you're that curious. 

 

Questions about Anti-Surge and troubleshooting are welcome here by me and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

 

TL;DR: Just turn Anti-Surge off. Gigabyte, Asrock, MSI - they all lack it and they all make perfectly good motherboards. There are better ways to determine if your hardware is having issues.

[STRMfrmXMN]

@Electronics WizardyDid I get it all right?

[Energycore]

17 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

(or a $2000 load tester)

You know I might just buy one of those.

[STRMfrmXMN]

Just now, Energycore said:

You know I might just buy one of those.

It's your money man

[Electronics Wizardy]

13 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

This is literally impossible without a multimeter or similar hardware. 

I haven't tested it(i will now, give me a min), but the chips built in can be accurate if done right. A multimeter will often use the same chips, just with more input protection.

 

 

I don't know what its measuring and how accurately, but I don't see whats there trying to fix, unless they have a relay that cuts power if there is a error(what power_good is for)

7 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Did I get it all right?

Mostly, I wouldn't trust a board, and unless I knew exactly what was triggering it I would ignore it.

[STRMfrmXMN]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I haven't tested it(i will now, give me a min), but the chips built in can be accurate if done right. A multimeter will often use the same chips, just with more input protection.

 

 

I don't know what its measuring and how accurately, but I don't see whats there trying to fix, unless they have a relay that cuts power if there is a error(what power_good is for)

Mostly, I wouldn't trust a board, and unless I knew exactly what was triggering it I would ignore it.

I've had this problem with cheap AM3 socket boards and cheap Haswell socket boards as well as a Z87 Sabertooth board so it's kind of all over the place. Let me know how your tests go!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, STRMfrmXMN said:

I've had this problem with cheap AM3 socket boards and cheap Haswell socket boards as well as a Z87 Sabertooth board so it's kind of all over the place. Let me know how your tests go!

Im gonna compare a Old hp multimeter(basically top of the line at the time, 5.5 digit) to a sensor in a hp dl 180 g6

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Im gonna compare a Old hp multimeter(basically top of the line at the time, 5.5 digit) to a sensor in a hp dl 180 g6

So 11.984 on the management interface and 12.0433 on the multimeter. Pretty good, should trigger a error at the wrong time. 

[STRMfrmXMN]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

So 11.984 on the management interface and 12.0433 on the multimeter. Pretty good, should trigger a error at the wrong time. 

Your equipment makes me drool

 

So that seems pretty accurate, then why is Anti-Surge so easily triggered by things that shouldn't?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Could be spikes so time to test that. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Your equipment makes me drool

 

So that seems pretty accurate, then why is Anti-Surge so easily triggered by things that shouldn't?

So pull out the scope and this is the normal wave. It's about 30mv of ripple. 

and here it is with a vacuum connected to the same outlet running. About about 40mv ripple, still in tax spec. Also these are top of the line delta psu so you cheap one will be much worse. 

[Wadu436]

So this just started happening after I cleaned out my PC with a can of air. ASUS anti surge just starts shutting off my pc when playing games. For example when alt-tabbing out of FO4, when I just won a game of Overwatch, etc. Should I be worried about my PSU failing. Bought it in April 2016 it's a SeaSonic M12-II Evo 620W.

[STRMfrmXMN]

1 hour ago, Wadu436 said:

So this just started happening after I cleaned out my PC with a can of air. ASUS anti surge just starts shutting off my pc when playing games. For example when alt-tabbing out of FO4, when I just won a game of Overwatch, etc. Should I be worried about my PSU failing. Bought it in April 2016 it's a SeaSonic M12-II Evo 620W.

That's a very weird problem... wonder if you air blasted something on the motherboard like a sensor or something. I don't really know. I'd probably ask for an RMA of your board tbh.

[Wadu436]

1 hour ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

That's a very weird problem... wonder if you air blasted something on the motherboard like a sensor or something. I don't really know. I'd probably ask for an RMA of your board tbh.

I'll see if it still acts up, I'd rather not go through the trouble of disassembling and reassembling my PC, for now it hasn't.