Supply stability questions.

Gentlemen, a moment of your time and wisdom, if you please.

I'm having stability issues and I'm starting to think it might be my PSU.

I'm running an Abit IC7 - MAX3 mobo and the CPU Vcore fluctuates pretty much under load and idle conditions. Is this normal, or not? The idle Vcore might, for example be 1.616V and the load Vcore drops to 1.574V. BTW - I'm running a P4 2.8D cpu. Sometimes (and this is where I'm confused ) the system appears stable at OC, and then all of the sudden it resets. I suspect the PSU because the system resets sometimes ( ) when the harddisk is accessed under load.

The system boots fine under extreme OC, but it appears that as soon as the CPU draws power - the feared reset beast rears its ugly head (mofo!)

Could this be the problem? I'm running the system on a AOpen 300W PSU. What is necessary for a CPU above 3Ghz? Will this do. Could it be something else, like the CPU. I'm pretty sure it's not the RAM (PC4000 RAM with idle setting = memtest always happy during stability testing)

Please, please, pretty please tell me your experiences.

Much appreciated

It is normal for your vcore to fluctuate.
I would pin your problem on the powersupply.
Even this tester had problems with the Aopen 300 watt psu.
I would almost classify Aopen psu's as generic and we all know we shouldn't o/c with generic psu's.

A definet PSU upgrade should be done very soon...

A PSU is the heart of the system...especially when OCed...do not go cheap on your system...

Going with a cheap PSU is like strapping a 150LBS backpack on you and still expect you to run the mile in under 4 minutes ...

You want something that is going to put out a nice clean supply of wattage and at the same time...keep your rails stable at a high OC...(this is where the backpack comes into play)...

Or you can look at it like this...you buy a F1 mclaren and then run 87 oct. gas...why spend all of that money for a killer car...if you are going to ruin it by buying cheap gas ...