I'm concerned that I have damaged either my CPU, DRAM, or motherboard component.

I'm using a full watercooling loop; but had been pushing voltages a little. For some passes of LinX @ 4.3 - 4.4Ghz, I had my CPU vcore at 1.5 with an i7 930. I also ran a high overclock with close to 1.5 vcore 24/7 ... for a couple of weeks.

I'd also experimented with memory speeds / relative CPU overclock, and had set the XMP profile that loaded from my G-Skill Trident 3 x 2GB sticks. The XMP profile seemed to have inordinately high VTT/QPI - about 1.48v ... I should have known better.

Anyway - suffice to say that I may have been brash with my voltages, even though most of my temps seemed within limits and a fair way off TJ max.

Lately, I've had to tune back my overclock on my i7 930 to sub 4Ghz ... and I'm still getting strange instabilities. I can still LinX pass @ 4Ghz, but I'm getting system freeze in my gaming applications at that overclock. I've eliminated my GPU's and PSU from any potential problem ... and right now I'm testing the system running just two of my three RAM sticks. LinX is now stable happily at 4.2 Ghz again, but with 4GB or RAM (dual channel).

I'm really only a newbie; but my thoughts are that I have degraded my memory controller on the i7 930. I can't hold clocks as high, and overclocks that were stable are now impossible to hold. Is my assumption consistent with what I'm experiencing?

I did for a time run my DRAM voltage at 1.72v; but I think this is more acceptable than running my QPI at about 1.48v ... and CPU at close to 1.5.

It's not the end of the world, if I've degraded the i7 930 to the point of uselessness, it's not a big deal to replace it since it's a relatively cheap CPU. Same with the DRAM; if that's the problem. The REAL frustration is that I'm not sure where the problem lies ... perhaps I have caused some fault in the actual RIIIE motherboard? This last possibility is the one I fear the the most, it's an expensive component, and I've set it all up with the water loop - I don't want to have to do a full system build again with a new motherboard, at least not right now.

Just to reiterate, I'm getting system freezes (not BSOD) when trying to game using overclocks that were once stable. The RIIIE has proven a great overclocking board, but I may have overvolted a bit too much, stupidly. Do any of you more experienced users think that my assumption of CPU degradation, in particular the memory controller (which I think is on the CPU) is correct?