Fluctuating VCore responsible for instability?

Abit IC7/2.4B/512 TwinMOS/Radeon 9700 Pro system in sig.

It is stable all but 95% of the time- i.e. just a little while ago I was playing Battlefield 1942- played for over an hour, no issues. Even the waterblock was actually cold to the touch.

All of a sudden it BSOD'd, no error message or anything- just a plain blue BSOD screen. I restarted and jumped into Hardware Doctor- took a look at the Vcore voltages and it was going from 1.65-1.68v - when I KNOW that this chip needs 1.68-1.70 for this speed. Normally it is 1.68-1.70, yet its unusually low right now (was ~1.65 when I restarted, shut it off for a min and turned it back on and its doing 1.66-1.68v).

Considering temps are fine and everything is seems AOK- is it likely that my fluctuating Vcores could lead to this random instability?

I also touched the MOSFETs- they weren't nearly as hot as the mem on my 9700 Pro- but they were pretty warm.

Is there anyway to possibly keep my Vcore stable? cooling the MOSFETs? any soldering jobs I can do?

TIA

There will always be some fluctuation in voltages. When the comp is idling, you get one voltage, full load, another. Your small swing in volts seems normal. What PSU are you using btw?

Nomjr said:

There will always be some fluctuation in voltages. When the comp is idling, you get one voltage, full load, another. Your small swing in volts seems normal. What PSU are you using btw?

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I just find it odd that I've always seen 1.68-1.7v while web browsing with SETI in the background as always, and today I'm seeing 1.65-1.68v.

hmm could be snds your pushin the limit on it. or your psu is just not up to the task.

gamefoo21 said:

hmm could be snds your pushin the limit on it. or your psu is just not up to the task.

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I installed the 3.5 Cats last night and wound up playing Bf1942 for two hours no problems...thinking it might just have been the video card? Yesterday I got an infinite loop error BSOD from atidv2dag (the ATI drivers). Everything has been ok so far today, I even used SetFSB to squeeze an extra 33Mhz out of it and its been fine...