3VCC dropping really low?

[JTMarch86]

Hey guys, 

For the past few weeks, I've been getting notices from AI Suite II that my 3.3v is dropping too low. 

But it only does it for a moment.  

Sometimes it's down to 2.8. I left the pc on for the past 24 hours with both HWMonitor and AI Suite open to see if they read the same.

So I wake up and see that the minimum on HWmonitor is 2.048 and the popup from AI Suite is saying the same thing. 

I have noticed that it tends to happen when idling. 

My system is gettin a bit old but they are good components.

I made sure to get a good motherboard and PSU. 

 

My question is, is this more likely the PSU? or the motherboard that is causing this?

 

PSU: Corsair AX860

Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V Pro

 

Complete specs are below

 

Thanks!

[rhyseyness]

A multimeter/PSU tester would be handy if you have one

[JTMarch86]

2 hours ago, rhyseyness said:

A multimeter/PSU tester would be handy if you have one

Yea unfortunately I don't know where mine is at the moment and I'm missing the leads for it. 

But having 2 separate programs reading the same thing, how likely is it that they are both wrong?

 

And if they are correct, could the issue be with the motherboard at all? Or could it ONLY be the PSU?

[rhyseyness]

14 hours ago, JTMarch86 said:

Yea unfortunately I don't know where mine is at the moment and I'm missing the leads for it. 

But having 2 separate programs reading the same thing, how likely is it that they are both wrong?

 

And if they are correct, could the issue be with the motherboard at all? Or could it ONLY be the PSU?

Bummer.

My money would be on the motherboard.

 

My thinking is that if there was a problem with the PSU, it would shut itself down if it's half decent (which the AX860 is).

2.05V on the 3V3 rail would almost definitely cause issues in the system causing crashes or unexpected shutdowns.

Since you're not seeing this, I think it's possible that the voltage monitor on your motherboard is off, and it's reading a lower voltage than is actually present.

I would assume both programs use the same monitor, and so both read too low (and the same/similar).

 

Having said this, you could just have been lucky, where the low voltage hasn't caused an issue, but the voltage regulation in the PSU is faulty.

I think this is unlikely because you haven't experienced any issues, and without HWmonitor and AI suite, you wouldn't have even known the problem existed.

 

It seems like a measuring error rather than an actual fault if you know what I mean.

 

I'd RMA the motherboard first, then if you still see the issue, the PSU.

Hope this helps