Instability Issues

[Demonic Goldfish]

Hey all. I'm running an E8500, overclocked to 3.9GHz (it's not even close to its limit, but my RAM can't go any higher than 844 before I have to increase the voltage and get various issues, so I took it back to 820). The system is stable in the Orthos blend test. However, whenever I try to benchmark, my system crashes in the middle of the first 3Dmark test (well once I managed to get further, but it was behaving oddly so I aborted). My temps are ~36-38C idle, ~49C load according to RealTemp, with a Tuniq Tower 120 cooling my CPU. My CPU voltage is 1.2375, and my RAM voltage is 2.25. My RAM is quite hot, but if it can survive the Orthos blend test I don't think it's the problem. One of my mates has suggested bumping the PCI-E from 100 to 115, saying that the GPU may not be able to keep up with the rest of the system, but I haven't tried that yet (not sure if it'll damage my system or anything 😛).

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance
DG

P.S. Are any of these voltages or anything ridiculously high? As in could I expect my CPU to last 3-4 years like this, if I take it back to stock when I'm only going to be word processing for a couple hours, and switch off when I'm not using my computer? The RAM is cheap to replace, but the CPU is quite expensive...

EDIT: Oh and also should I have Speedstep disabled? Personally I don't see the problem with it, but I've seen people advising others to disable it when overclocking...

 

[TehPwn]

If its Benchmarks, I might suggest that it could be something to do with your Graphics card not working properly or therefore halting etc. Are you overclocking your Graphics card during Benchmarks at all? That's all I can suggest for now though, - Alex.

 

[TehPwn]

Oh and yes disable speedstep!!, it will reduce your core speed to save power, ALWAYS disable it in my advice. - Alex.

 

[Demonic Goldfish]

My graphics card is at stock, haven't touched its clocks since I got it (about 3 days ago I think). I can run all of the tests with no crashes at stock, so it must be something to do with the overclock, but I'm not sure what...

Thanks though

EDIT: I played Crysis the other day with my processor @ 3.94GHz, and it was fine, but I didn't try benchmarking it.