acceptable PSU voltages

[omega552003]

hi i was wondering if i should be alarmed with my psu voltages

+12v=+11.86v
+5v=+4.97v
+3.3v=+3.34v
-12v=-8.46v
-5v=-2.89v

im perticually concerned about my negitive voltages and was wondering if its norm/safe

system:
intel pentium 4(northwood)2.53ghz
1gb 3200 DDRram
2 EIDE drives
1 SCSI 320U drive
ati radeon 9600xt

[mingyu01]

you shouldn't be alarmed at all
that is normal voltage
however the negative voltages don't make any diffrence because only part that uses those voltages are isa so you shouldn't be worried

[JPMiller]

Those are not bad tolerances... like mingy said... what brand ... max wattage is it?

[Peter M]

omega, I bet your (3rd party?) monitoring software is reading them wrong. Or is that reading copied from the board's own utility or BIOS?

[omega552003]

Its a 350watt enermax brand new, and your right it was my 3rd party monitoring prog that was messing up

[Peter M]

So let's believe the positive readings are correct - and these look very good.

[sechs]

Plus or minus 5% is completely acceptable.

If you want more accurate numbers, you'll need to measure with a meter.

[Peter M]

Graphics cards are much more twitchy on their (3.3V) supply. Trouble starts when it's dipping below 3.20V. Also, most 5V components start getting flaky when you're nearing 4.85V - So we better make that margin 2.5 % up or down.

What we don't know is WHERE the mainboard picks the voltages up for monitoring. There is a considerable voltage delta across the length and width of the board - that's also why e.g. AMD recommends the power supply plug be near the center of the board.

[sechs]

If components are getting flakey outside of the plus or minus 5% zone, then there's something wrong with the components, as this is ATX spec.