Is my power supply not enough?

[jon the cpa]

I recently built a new system, and I'm having issues with overclocking. Here are my components:

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502

Graphics:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

Power Supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341017

I've tried numerous times to overclock the processor, and from what I have read I should be able to get it to at least 4.3. I can't even get it to run at 3.8.

When I try to run games, my whole computer freezes and the screen becomes a mess of colors and squiggly lines. At first I thought it was my graphics card, so I stopped overclocking it. The errors continued. I do have issues with my graphics card randomly shutting itself off, but it doesn't freeze my entire PC. It just resets itself to factory settings.

So, my conclusion is that it may be my power supply. It's 600W, and I am running the above components plus a SSD and a RAID0 configuration on 2 HDD's. I also have two monitors (1 plugged into the GPU and 1 plugged into the motherboard's output), which may be requiring additional power.

Any thoughts here? My other concern is that it's not my PSU and it's my motherboard, which would suck...

 

[davcon]

Memtest86+ your ram.
http://www.memtest.org/
One stick at a time at ram default speed/timings
Good idea if you haven't done so.

 

[jon the cpa]

Bumping this with a question. When you say "One stick at a time" does that mean I need to remove one stick, or will the program give me options to test one stick at a time?

 

[rolli59]

Remove one! Your PSU is plenty.

 

[jon the cpa]

So I ran 1 pass one each memory stick and returned no errors. Should I run more passes, or should I look to other sources for my problem?

 

[rolli59]

Run more passes but have you raised your vcore?

 

[ko888]

Does it even run at stock settings (i.e. CPU @ 3.3 GHz)?

Are you using the stock Intel provided CPU cooler or a third-party CPU cooler?

Overclocking success is not a guarantee. It involves a lot of luck.

The GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 4 +2 phase power design (4-phase for CPU, 2-phase for iGPU) isn't that great for overclocking.

 

[we1shcake]

Run more passes but have you raised your vcore?

i was gonna say the same thing a lot of people forget to raise the vcore their first couple of times

 

[jon the cpa]

I did raise my vcore, but still no luck.

ko888, I am using a third-party cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

As for my motherboard, I haven't been that impressed with it so far. The overall design just isn't that user friendly, and the BIOS settings are a nightmare.

 

[ko888]

What is your Load-Line Calibration setting set to, [Auto] or [Standard] or [Level 1] or [Level 2]?

I heard that there is a BIOS bug when using anything other than the [Auto] setting will result in system instability when attempting to overclock.

 

[jon the cpa]

Interesting. I believe it was set to Standard, but I've reset the mobo back to factory defaults. I'll have to give that a try and see what happens.

 

[jon the cpa]

Well, I ran into the screen freeze issue again, and I captured a video of it today. I was playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, and it happened. I had the game open on my other monitor, but it just froze in place. My second monitor had Facebook open, and it is the one that had the weird lines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLfuv7_yok0

Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

Also, at this time, neither my CPU nor my GPU were overclocked.

 

[ko888]

Well, I ran into the screen freeze issue again, and I captured a video of it today. I was playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, and it happened. I had the game open on my other monitor, but it just froze in place. My second monitor had Facebook open, and it is the one that had the weird lines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLfuv7_yok0

Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

Also, at this time, neither my CPU nor my GPU were overclocked.

A combination of the beta game code and the graphics card driver not playing together nicely?

With beta code I would expect there to be bugs hence the reason for beta testing.

 

[jon the cpa]

A combination of the beta game code and the graphics card driver not playing together nicely?

With beta code I would expect there to be bugs hence the reason for beta testing.

It's really not a beta, it's more of a stress test. The game is complete.

But I've had this same issue with other games like World of Warcraft and Skyrim.