[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
Get a copy of SiSoft Sandra. Take a look at your PSU rails. If they aren't steady then you just confirmed there is a serious problem. Swap out the PSU, if that doesn't solve the problem then change your motherboard because the capacitors are probably bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

The PSU checked out OK (about the only thing they didn't throw up their hands at) at a local computer repair shop. The test they used was a static test with idiot lights (green means OK) on the main board power connector so I don't know how good a test it is regarding steady output.

I'm not up to speed on how accurate these MB monitoring tools are so it might take a while to see what my power looks like. The PSU is a Fortron 530W P530XF (a relatively high end unit) so I'm hoping it's OK.

The overclocker forums I've seen so far seem to mention other things but I'll search on capacitor problems tomorrow. If my PC doesn't stabilize I may buy a new box (salvaging some known good parts) because I've already spent too much time on this.

Thanks for the input.

~ Rick