If you have more than 1.5-1.6 volts at A8 (and A3) then the respective LED is not conducting. Either it is backwards, or it is not soldered successfully, or it is damaged. In that case, the driver plate voltage will be very high, and that is connected to the output tube grid which will be high, causing the output cathode to be very high and the current to be too high, which drives the power supply voltage down a bit.
Yes, it messes up everything.