Really worried about CPU/PSU

[SupahDonkeh]

Over the past 2 weeks or so, my computer has occasionally been freezing/crashing for 3-5 seconds at a time, with audio repeating, although only during times when the CPU is put on heavy load (mostly when continuing in football manager 2011) one time even causing a blue screen. The CPU was overclocked but I declocked it to see if it would help.

Because of the symptoms I'm pretty sure its the CPU/PSU but what do you guys think?

Two GTX 460's, I7 920, Corsair 650TX, Asus P6T SE (flashed to normal P6T, has always been fine) and 4GB 1600mhz corsair ram.

The system is only just over a year old. If its the PSU I don't mind hugely but the 920 is costly and i'll need to buy another one unless I decide to fork out the cash for a P67 mobo + CPU (which I probably would if that is the case)

What do you guys think I should do? The problem is only niggling at the moment though. For now I'm going to leave everest going for an hour to see if anything happens.

 

[sadams04]

I doubt you have a PSU problem unless it is going bad. The Corsair 650w is plenty of power for dual GTX 460 GPUs. I also wouldn't think it would be the CPU. Ignorning any tweaking that could potentially cause probalems (overclocking / flashing MB), start with the basics... Check all your drivers and update as necessary.

 

[SupahDonkeh]

I know you are trying to help but I really can't see it being a driver issue... everything has been fine until two weeks ago, and I haven't installed any new major hardware or software :/

I'll check to see if I have anything I can update anyway

 

[tsnor]

Hi, you could be right. "I'm pretty sure its the CPU/PSU "

It could also be you picked up a software bug fix that destabilized your system. or loaded new software. or new drivers for your pair of 460s.

Back off your video driver. SLI is not common, so video driver bugs unique to SLI get through testing more frequently than other bugs. (Want to know how common it is? Check the steam hardware survey)

Backup your system to an external USB drive. Then try backing off to a windows restore point prior to when you started seeing the problem.

IF you have a spare disk drive then do a clear install, no network access, and see if the system stabilizes.

Consider pulling one of the 460s to rule out graphics problems.

Usually these types of things are software, not hardware. (Or can be fixed by reloading software -- if a disk write goes bad then is it a sw problem? - no. But it's fixed by reloading software)

PSU less likely to be a problem if backing off on the OC didn't change frequency of problem. That should have reduced load on PSU. If you are OC'ing your pair of 460s then back them off too.

Intel cpus have 3 year warranty. Obvious comments about warranty and OC'ing omitted.

 

[SupahDonkeh]

Well the funny thing is I've been running the everest stability test for 10 minutes now and not a single stutter or anything. While i t seems to happen when the CPU is on load, its only sometimes. You gave me a bit more confidence when you said intel CPU's have 3 year warranty though :]

I'll back up vital stuff and try a system restore to a few weeks back I guess.