Is it possible it's the PSU?

[Hannibal Smith]

Hi Everyone

Im new here!

Okay so my problem, I purchased an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4ghz 4 days ago. It was an upgrade from an Athlon 64 3200+. I am just wondering weather the problems I am having is due to a lack of 'juice' from the PSU. My system will seem to lock up with only the mouse cursor able to move(i can still select the start menu and taskbar shortcut icons) and then about 30 seconds later the computer becomes responsive again and will load the programs that I had clicked previously to load. then again 10 minutes or so later the same behaviour. The reason I'm asking if its to do with the power supply is because whilst looking around in the BIOS for any wrong settings, I discovered under the hardware monitor menu that the +12.00V is only running between 11.965 and 11.977. the other voltages are fine. Could this cause this type of 'flakey' system performance? It also does it if I exert a lot of stress on the CPU. With my previous processor, these voltages were all above the figures shown in the bios. My PSU is a Q-tec 550W switching PSU.

Just incase other hardware/Software I'm running:

Windows Vista Home Premium(32bit)
Asrock 939-Dual SATA2
Samsung SP2504C SATA2 HDD 250GB
3072MB PC3200 RAM
Geforce 6800 GT AGP (Not OC)
CD/DVD Drive
Koolance Water Cooling Exos
USB Expansion Card (PCI)

Could someone advise me if it is that and then I can go out and buy another one today because this is driving me mad!

Thanks in advance

 

[Big B]

Voltages are allowed a tolerance of 5% in either direction. For most accurate results, measurements should be taken with a multimeter. Motherboards don't take readings right where power plugs in, just somewhere down the line.

Q-Tec is one of the worst, if not the worst, power supply brand out there. FSP/Sparkle/Fortron (same company, different brands) and Ultra are some of the cheaper, yet solid companies. A few notches up are Corsair, Enermax, and OCZ, for example. A 500W+ power supply from any of these companies will be fine for your system. Even if this isn't the source of your problems, the sheer quality, or more accurately lack of, of Q-tec is enough to highly recommend investing in something better. Get rid of it, as several forum members here have run into stability issues with that brand of power supplies.

 

[Hannibal Smith]

Thanks very much for your supply. I am taking it to a local computer store to have it tested today so I will write back the findings of that later on. I will definately invest in somthing a bit more reliable I think!