cantankerous: Sounds Like Power Supply issues. If you listen closely to your computer during 3dMark01, you'll hear a kind of screaching/whining coming from your Power supply. This is huge PWM current transients vibrating the coils in the transformer and filter coils in the supply. Basically long story short, you computer doesnt use current in nice easy steady streams. It demands current in hundred of thousands of pules per second. Depending on your power supplies filtering, this "ripple" voltage caused by the fluctuating current demands can cause instability due to the noise this fluctuation creates.

The regulation circuits on your Mobo uses current in pulses. If your power supply cant provide the current fast enough, or it is at a frequency that resonates (oscillates) the power supply output, then you'll get voltage fluctuations (oscilations) which are caused by current fluctuations which leads so instability.

One specification that is not mentioned anywhere in computer power supplies is transient response. This tells how fast current is delivered into a load. Switch-Mode power supplies are fantastic at delivering steady current at a steady voltage, but their transient response is the worse out of any power supply design. Computers demand current in split second pulses, if the power supply drops the voltage low enough for a millisecond during a surge in current, that equates to current that the CPU/memory/videocard regulation must compensate for. The regulation for the CPU/Memory/Video card is also switch-mode regulation (PWM whatever you wanna call it) which isnt known for fast transient response. SO you have a power supply being asked to deliver split second current with NO voltage drop (which isnt gonna happen with the relatively cheap power supplies used in computers) and also the regulation circuits must keep up with current demands for that split millisecond also. Say the voltage drops to an unacceptable level for 1 millisecond. during this millisecond, there have been hundreds of thousands of clock cycles in your computer and it only takes a few of these clock cycles to be corrupt enough to lock up your system.

Computer power supplies are dirt cheap compared to industrial units designed for perfect mission critical use. I've got a 75 watt 12 volt Switch mode power supply thats over half the size of my PCP&C 750 and costs $450. The specification sheet has 30 specs that deal with step timing, transient response rise and fall times and different load lines, regulation ratings, derating curves etc. This power supply has the regulation of a linear regulator but the transient response of an unregulated unit... No Matter how expensive your computer power supply is, it aint nothin special. Plus most computer geeks arent geeky enough to know that transient response is even important or even exists.

In all reality, I wouldnt worry about it tooo much. Your silverstone power supply is adequate for real world use. If it bugs you enough (which is understandable considering this is your hobby and your striving for perfection, which is good!) get something rated higher watts wise. Your most likly not drawing the limit of your current supply, but switch mode power supplies (and anything technological) work better when not loaded to near their max. If the supply is designed to have reasonable transient response and filtering into 1000 watts, it will perform even better in these specifications when loaded 40-50 percent. A good power supply will be able to provide THE NEEDED current twice as quick when loaded to 50% compared to 100% load. The transient response doesnt change, but since your only asking it to deliver half the current, it reaches this half current point in half the time (very simplified expanation though)

But back on topic, Whats the difference between the UT P35 T2R and the LT P35 T2R? is it just the heatpie and transpiper thingy? My XBX2 has given me an ulcer with all its problems and now wont run 4gigs of ram even at stock settings so Definitely looking at the DFI line.

Good thread though. this is still my favorite online forum for computer nerds!