P6N Diamond & New P/supply..Funny Story

Question

Okay, I had some flashing issues which resulted in me Rma'ing my board and working with a laptop for 2-3 weeks.  I get a "swapped board" from MSI...works great after I straighten out some LGA pins.  I have it set up outside the case cooling with the stock heatsink while I'm waiting for a 600 watt Ultra X3 single rail power supply with flex cables because I'm going to tuck all the cables under and around the motherboard when I install it.  So, I get the power supply, a real beauty, great thin flexible cables/etc.  I spend about 2 1/2 hrs installing the motherboard and my CPU and Northbridge watercoolers and Soutbridge heatsink/fan.  Have all the cables tucked away neatly, the board looks like a poster child for technical college. I fire it up and start to see how far I can overclock it with watercooling, (it only did 3170mhz on air stable)  Within an hour I have it at 3600+mhz and have only increased voltage by .25 v.!
  A few minutes into a benchmark, the system shuts down and reboots?  Oops, maybe too high..I reduce the CPU to 3400mhz...run a bench..shuts down and reboots.  What the heck?  I set it to default speed. Several minutes later, it shuts down, and it doesnt reboot..oh my gosh..did I fry this motherboard??  PC wont power up..case lights just blink a tad..cmos reset does nothing.  I check the power to the supply, its ok.  I get my old supply and hook up the motherboard connectors and hit the On button..bingo...PC fires right up!!   The brand new power supply has died after 2 hours of use..LOL!
  I almost had a heart attack when it wouldn't start.and it was the new supply that was the problem.  If there's a moral to this story, please let me know what it is...hahaha.
Paul

Answer 1

I've had that happen to me before.  I had a 380w psu and decided to overclock my cpu with my already overclocked video card of about 15%.  I  had my cpu overclocked a good 40% when all of a sudden it shut down.  I try to reboot and nothing, just fans spinning and lights glowing.  I reset bios nothing, replace all parts on motherboard 1 by one with same result.  I figure no way it's my psu.  sure enough I put in my spare el cheapo psu and it fires right up.  I started looking up my power draw for my system and I figured I was pulling almost 430watts - lol.  so I learned the hard way, speed kills.
For you though, I'd say the moral of your story would be more of even though you pay big bicks for quality components doesn't mean they won't fail.  every company has lemons roll off the assembly line no matter what.  and from system specs you listed and the psu you have, that psu shouldn't have failed no matter how hard you pushed your system. 
btw, I never heard of that psu company before so i looked it up and it seems a good company that is fairly new.  I see lots of good things about them.
Here is a link to a review of your particular psu.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/ultra_x3_600watt_modular/
I was especial impressed with those test results considering it's a modular psu.  I also liked those flex cables.  I have big problems with my new Antec P182 case that has the psu at the bottom of the case that is sealed off from the MB area to keep the case ambient temps down a little more for the MB, but the draw back is you need to run the cabling on the back side of the case behind the motherboard and there is not much room.  so the modular cabling will help as well as the flex cable will make it easier to route.  especially the ATX cable.