Memory, Mobo, or CPU?

I just bought 3 new pieces: Epox 8RDA+, Corsair PC3500, and Athlon 2400+.

I started at 3x250 .. no dice, board says RAM failure.
Next, 3x225 ... no dice, RAM failure.
Boost RAM voltage to 2.90 ... still no luck
Next, 3x217 ... no dice.
3x210 ... no dice.
3x205 ... no dice.
3x200 ... it boots. Okay, so I'm at PC3200 ...
3x201 ... it boots. Whoopee.
3x202 ... it boots. Yahoo!
3x203 ... boots, but flakey.

202MHz limit ... is it the RAM, the motherboard, or the CPU? I paid the extra few bucks for the DDR 433 ... and am a little bummed that I can't get that far on it.

Thoughts?

yeah that sounds shady, thats all some good equip. I say troubleshoot each part if you have the spares laying around.

-Swap out mobo and chip - Test ram
-Swap mobo and ram - Test CPU
-Swap ram and chip - Test mobo

ect, ect.

Even try swapping PS. Ive had weird things happen and itll end up being PS issues.

All of it's new except the PS. It's a 400W Sparkle, and that's the one thing I'm sure is good ...

But, I think it's all moot, now. The mobo won't boot at any speed, now. Not sure what happened, but it hangs at error code 05 now ... According to the Epox manual, it's a CMOS error.

Yeah sounds like a mobo prob (gotta love those post LCD's on these boards now). But if you can id swap in another mobo just to check, then call the techies.

you prolly hafta do a vdd mod to the mobo

Hmmm ... guess I'll search that out ...