Power Supply

Point value changed by question poster.

How do you see these changes? Do you use a program or a meter to look at the changes? In most new computers they have regulators to help with home current and brown outs. Have you had the line's for your computer checked? Is it on a curcuit that supplies other devices, like an ac unit or dish washer? Both will draw alot of current.

Your power supply may or may not be going bad.

I suspect one of 2 causes:

1. Your power supply is "marginal" for your system, and AC line sags are causing the DC output voltages to drop.

2. Your power supply is undersized for your system. From time to time, enough power is required by resources, and the power supply is running hot, and the output "rolls" back to a safe power output level.

Either way, the corrective action is to replace your supply with a higher wattage unit.
I am building new systems with 300 Watt or larger power supplies, and am considering setting 350 Watts as the minimum I will use for systems with CD-RW drives.

Chas

Hi,

Well that's pretty specific information that isn't easy to come by!!?? How do you know you're getting occasional voltage drops and especially independent drops for the 12V circuit and the 3.3V circuit??

If you isolate the problem to a bad/dodgy mains power supply, then Uninterruptable Power Supplies aren't terribly expensive these days.

You can pick one up for just a couple of hundred dollars (Err... $AU I'm not sure about $US).
Since you dont need any more than a few seconds storage, then smallest one you can find would do you fine!

Cheers,
Tim.