Voltage too high

[Jeff7]

I have an Asus P5A board, and the problem here is, the 3.3v setting doesn't seem to exist. The sDRAM, and the CPU's I/O voltage should be 3.3, but the lowest this board can be set to is 3.5v. And when Windows is running, it moves up to 3.6; 3D games increase it even more, to the point that it freezes the system. I've got a TNT2 M64 AGP card; it is not presently overclocked, and it is well-cooled, as is the computer's CPU. I used the Asus Probe Utility, and during a 3D game, the warning click begins - overvoltage. Shortly after, the lockup occurs. This lockup does also happen without the AsusProbe program running, so that's not the cause. For the heck of it, I boosted the voltage to 3.6, the only other setting. That only caused the lockup to occur sooner.
So it seems that overvoltage is the problem here. Is there any way of reducing the 3.3v setting down to what it should be? Right now it's showing as 3.616; all other voltages are within .6 of what they should be. The power supply is good too. Any ideas/suggestions?

[Bones CoA]

Well, I'm have a different problem. I have a Gigabyte GA6BXE board, and all of a sudden, my 3.3v reading is falling below 3 volts...and I can't figure out why. I know it's not a problem with the power supply and I've done nothing to the system that could have caused it. What exactly is this 3.3v supply powering?

[ram]

I think you can go into the Bios/power managment/voltage monitor and set that 3.3v
up to 3.5 or disable it so it wont freeze up the system.I have this same board set on 3.5V(default)and ive never had any problems.
Im running a AMD450 K6/2 @2.3V.

[Jeff7]

Yeah, I've heard a lot about Gigabyte boards not being able to provide enought power. The 3.3v apparently goes to the CPU's I/O buffer(AMD processors only I guess), also to the memory if it's sDRAM, and to the AGP slot.
Maybe if we could somehow combine the two boards into one, then it would work...

[Jeff7]

No, the only options in BIOS for the voltage are to either display the voltage, or have the monitor ignore it. I don't see anything there to change it though.

[oblivion]

I seriously doubt that the IO voltage is causeing your problems.........I have heard that all asus MBs have the IO defaulted to 3.5-3.6

[Jeff7]

If they're not, I really don't know what. I mean, the AMD CPU should not be running at 59C with the case off the computer, and that thing's got a big heatsink with a 2 inch fan on it. It is making contact too; the processor temp goes up slowly. With a previous heatsink, a capacitor on the mthbd was preventing full contact, and that caused a rapid increase in temp, and system instability - without using any 3D hardware.
I do notice that while I play a 3D game, that's when the voltage peaks.

Just wondering then, if DRAM, AGP cards, and I/O voltages are typically 3.3v, why does that option not even exist? Wouldn't that tend to shorten component life?