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I suspect that my ATX case's power unit from China provides FAR LESS power than it's supposed to. Is there a way to see (in real time) how much power the whole system is trying to consume and how much is it really getting? Maybe, not in watts, but the voltage is not enough, say, 4.5V instead of 5V. What I really need to know, is should I return the power supply to a shop and buy another one.

Just in case (I don't know, do the following components support power consuming feedback):

  • PCI-E 2.0 PALIT GTX550Ti, NE5X55T0HD09-1061F, 1Гб, GDDR5
  • ECS H67H2-M3 LGA 1155, mATX
  • INTEL Core i5 2300, LGA 1155

NO FORMULAS, PLEASE. I can calculate the summary power on my own. I need REAL TIME consuming data.

NO KILL-A-WATT LIKE DEVICES, PLEASE. I need power consuming data AFTER the power supply, not of the (system + power supply itself).

UPDATE

This is my HW Monitor Screenshot:

enter image description here

UPDATE 2

What I've learned from the answers. This problem is not solvable by people like me. I'm not kinda electrician man, and I have no multimeters/testers. It's too much for me to buy one just for this private task. (Though, I have to, maybe, to be able to solve such tasks in future). Without hardware, I can control voltage only, that can prove the suspicion but not refute. To make the things worse, software like HW Monitor is buggy, since it shows VIN1 values instead of +3.3V like in my case.

P.S. Since I've replaced DDR3 memory, no more BSODs, so I think, the power supply is OK.

noober
  • 233

5 Answers5

25

I think you don't quite understand the terms you are using or the physics involved.

"Is there a way to see (in real time) how much power the whole system is trying to consume and how much is it really getting?"

Think of the power supply like a water supply line. Think of the voltage like pressure. If the pressure in the water supply line is correct, then your house is getting precisely as much water as it is trying to consume. If your house tries to draw more water than the supply can provide, the pressure will have to drop.

Maybe, not in watts, but the voltage is not enough, say, 4.5V instead of 5V.

Why is the voltage not enough? The power supply's job is to provide the right voltage, just like the water supply's job is to provide the right pressure.

What I really need to know, is should I return the power supply to a shop and buy another one.

What's the make and model of the power supply? We can tell you whether it's a decent unit or a piece of junk. You can't measure that, just like there's nothing you can measure on a car to tell you if it's well made.

David Schwartz
  • 62,365
18

The information reported by various sensors on modern CPUs, motherboards and graphics cards can be viewed with programs like CPUID's HWMonitor.

enter image description here

Brian
  • 9,034
15

You could presumably work it out with a power supply tester to see if the rails output the voltage they are supposed to.

If you wanted an absolutely accurate realtime way of doing it while the system is running, it would be hugely complicated and involve monitoring each and every power lead's voltage and current, or at the very least, to do so per rail

Journeyman Geek
  • 133,878
4

What you need is something between your PSU and wall socket.

Try something like this: http://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?id=378012

It will give you the amount of Watts used by your system. You can't have a value of what your system "needs" in terms of power. There are no signals like "I need more power" passed anywhere. You can watch the voltage on different PSU lines to see if there's something wrong going on, but looking at your CPU/Video Card/HDD/Whatever voltages can be misleading due to many technologies of power throttling depending on usage/temperature/other factors.

Krystian
  • 223
2

Well, according to specs, Maximum Power Draw of GTX550Ti is 116W, some Watts add CPU (95 W), but... Even on max consumption you seems doesn't have the ability to load any up-to-date PSU.

If you really want to get and see real numbers, you can buy, mount and use

with

  • ZALMAN ZM-VPM1 additinal modules-wattmeters (one module per one power line)
Lazy Badger
  • 3,714