I've got a couple or questions, but first a little story. I've been building / upgrading my system for the past 2 months. Yesterday I got an ASUS P5N-D motherboard (nVidia 750i chipset). The first weird thing with it is it makes a high pitched sqweeking/sqweeling sound kinda like a bad hard drive that might be memory related (it's the worst when running prime95 with lots of memory). I've got 8GB OCZ Gold PC6400 that I've manually set it in the bios and overclocked it with a q6600 to 3.0GHz. So last night and this morning I was benchmarking with a 8800gt. I got a slightly higher 3dmark06 score but benching on ultra high and high the frames where half of what the asus p35 motherboard had (the one it replaced).I'm thinking it's either a bad motherboard or memory problem? What do you guys think? I'm waiting for responses back on the ASUS and OCZ forums.Anyways, if I can't get the issues resolved I'm going to RMA it. So here's my real questions for ya'll:Right now I'm looking at these two motherboards, what are your opinions?-750i MSI P7N 3-way SLI $120 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128089R)-X38 GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DS4 $187 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128089R)If I do get the X38, is it better to sell my 8gb 800MHz and go for 4GB of OCZ Reaper @ 1000MHz? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227277)

Sorry, wrong link to the MSI motherboard, here it is: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16813130159R

That sounds like it may be a PWM issue. The PWMs are those little chips next to the CPU socket that supply and regulate the power to your motherboard. On a modern board, they should be covered by a heatsink, and they're located right next to the board's IO port section, just to the left of the CPU socket on a typical ATX Socket 775 board in a tower case. Running a stress testing program pushes those little things to the max. Sometimes it's a sign of a PWM going bad. If this is a new board, look into the PWM squealing issue further, and return/RMA it if it makes you feel nervous.There's also a chance that it's the PSU and unrelated to the motherboard.

>The first weird thing with it is it makes a high pitched sqweeking/sqweeling sound kinda like a bad hard drive that might be memory related (it's the worst when running prime95 with lots of memory).That's going to happen with certain boards when you try to populate all 4 slots and then overclock the RAM. Populating all 4 slots on any board any attaining a stable overclock takes alot of work.If you are going to overclock you a better off getting a 2x2GB kit so only two slots are populated. The X38 and the 4GB of OZC Reaper would be a better way to go.

Sounds like the little inverters on you motherboard are having trouble suppyling what your board needs, is your main PSU big enough, if the rails on the main PSU drop it will cause the same problem.

Thanks for the info, I'll try a new powersupply. Do you have any recommendations for a budget power supply?

Before you try another power supply try and down clock your system and remove two sticks of RAM and see what happens. I have two motherboards here other than the one I am currently using one a P5K3 the other a MSI P35 Diamond. Each board begins to whine at a certain point when overclocking with all four slots populated. This whining becomes very prominent and noticeable when running a CPU/Memory stress test such as Prime95. This happens with my particular two motherboards with any powersupply even up to 1000W.We have not yet reached a point in motherboard manufacturing where the boards are specifically designed to be overclocked with all 4 memory slots in use. It's hard to do, requires some serious voltage changes, and if not paid attention to will result in damaged hardware.The majority of the time in my experience the squealing comes from loose inductors as the frequecy is cranked up. A small dab of silicone on the loose inductor may or may not correct the issue. Also, just because the board begins to whine does not necessarily mean its a problem. It just maybe an after effect of your overclock and something you need to learn to live with as distracting as it may be. Although I'm not using the two aforementioned motherboardds anymore they are still both in great working order and tucked away just in case.

I did your suggestion and only had 2 sticks in and tried them in both of the slots and didn't make a difference. I used the ASUS software and under clocked the CPU to 1.4 GHz and ran Prime95 and the sound was still there (although not as much). Should I RMA the board or try a higher wattage PSU?