Thanks for the lead on the monitoring programs. I've got a few but neither of those two. I don't actually render with Studio or 3Delight, I'm a Lux-head ;-) When it does stall, it is just when working in Studio. When I mean stall in this instance, I should specify that it's more response issues; super-slow to be precise. Sometimes it takes 5 or ten seconds for the viewport cam to respond, which leads me to save shortly before it crashes. But when that happens, it's just Studio, from moving the viewport cams or even adjusting a dial. Running that same scene in Luxrender can often double the memory use with no loss of CPU response on the rest of the system,nd Lux will run all 6 CPU's to 100%. I can still have Chrome open and pages open as normal. The thing that made me suspect memory was that Studio seems to cap my system at a very 32-bit like 4gb, even though everything installed is 64 bit. 

On the driver end, I also use nvidia cards (two older GTS450's; I DO need to upgrade--I have a Titan in my dreams but will likely spring for a 6-series before too long) and keep them up to date to maintain compatability with everything else I use. 

I'll have a poke and see what pops up. Thank you greatly for helping to troubleshoot this! 

crimsonworx.com; free ebooks and previews

I've bowed down to facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crimsonworx