Desktop periodically turns black while stress testing CPU - Normal or Unstable?

[LeMonarque]

Hi.  I'm attempting to overclock my i7-4770K.  I'm using an ASUS Sabertooth Z87 motherboard and 2x8GB of Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3-1866 MHz RAM.  My boot drive is a Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB and I do not have a RAID array.  I am using AIDA64 Extreme Edition: Trial Version v3.00.2500

 

My current settings are the i7-4770K @ 4.6GHz and 1.225 manual voltage.

 

When I run the tests, my desktop will periodically turn all black.  The monitor is still on, and the signal via dual-link DVI from my GPU is not being lost.  Just the color of the desktop turns all black.  The only thing I see is my cursor, which turns into the blue "loading circle" for the duration of the black desktop screen.  After about 2-4 minutes, the desktop will return to the display.  Then the black screen will return a few minutes later.

 

Is this a normal part of the stress test? Is this an indicator of instability or is my system still stable? AIDA64 does not report any failures/errors and the system does not auto-shut-down itself or crash. The cycle literally just goes on forever while the stress test is running.

 

I'm using the trial version, running the stress test with CPU, FPU, and cache checked.  Stress system memory, local disks, and GPU(s) are unchecked.

 

I am driving an ASUS PB278Q display with an ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DIrectCU II OC using Nvidia's WHQL 320.18 driver.

[Fiery]

One of the drivers (maybe ForceWare) or one of the installed and background running software or services may be sensitive to the heavy stress AIDA64 puts on the system.  Do you have AI Suite II installed?

 

[LeMonarque]

I do have AI Suite II installed >_<  Should I temporarily uninstall it?  I close every application when I run Aida64, including AI Suite II, which opens on startup.

[Fiery]

Please try to uninstall it temporarily, and let us know if it makes a difference.