Is it my memory thats stopping me?

I have a P4 2.4B cpu on a soltek-ERV mobo and two 256mb samsung pc2700 memory and a overclocked geforce4 ti4200 graphic card. I would like to hit the 3 ghz with this one but the maximum fsb i can start with is 160, need 166 to go past 3ghz.

I also have a volcano 7+ cpu-fan.

At 160 fsb everything works ok(SisoftSandra, 3dmark) but with 161 or higher it wont boot up.

What settings should i try to get these last 6 mhz up to 3ghz?

True pc2700 is supposed to hit 166. If it is true pc2700 I would say it is something else.

Have you TRIED 166? The 1/5 pci divisor may kick in at that point... if your pci or agp devices are holding you back, this strategy should work.

Otherwise, I suspect it is your processor, your motherboard, or your video card. If it is your video card, I would back down on its overclocking to see if you get any further. If the PCI bus is holding you back, this is the most likely cause of that.

If it's your processor, try a little more voltage, but read the sticky on S.N.D.S. first.
If it's your motherboard, you're SOL unless you buy a new one.

It could also be your power supply. What wattage do you have? 300W is probably enough, but I'd suggest at least 350W for an overclocked P4.


P.S. pc2700 usually has a bit of headroom built in. Unless you got it from AIB or some crappy site, you can count on it for at least 166fsb.

Well, it's certainly not the video card. Assuming you have your cpu:memory ratio set to 1:1 it's either the cpu hitting its limits or the Via chipset. While the cpu doesn't have much chance of exceeding 166fsb it would at least have a chance of it on a i845 based motherboard. It is my impression that very few Via's get as high as 160fsb, much less higher. In any event the system is not going to pick up a lot of speed from 6MHz on the fsb, especially if you have to lower the memory multiplier to get there.