2800+ Barton and OCing ????

Hello all. Want to start off by saying this board ROCKS!!! I have learned lots by reading and searching, but I ran into a small problem, and I am wondering if anyone can lead me in the right direction or give me some help on my situation.
I'm having problems OCing my 2800+ Barton. My setup is as follows.....2800+ Barton, Abit AT7 Max2, ThermalRight AX-7 w/80 mm fan, Antec 400 watt PS, 512 megs ram. I can't seem to get over 170 fsb @ 12.5 clock speed. Anything over this and my system either reboots, locks up, or I get weird error messages.
Is there anything in the bios that I am overlooking or what. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks to all in advance.

welcome to the forums str8blast...

Hopefully I'll be able to answer some of your questions. However before we start I'm going to need some more information about your system.

First of all exactly what brand and speed is the ram that you bought? Second of all what voltages are you running that chip at to boot @ 170 * 12.5? Lastly what do you mean when you say that you get wierd error messages? Are these error message happeneing in your os or are they pre os errors?

If you answer these questions ill probobly be able to help... if you want real time help you can reach me @ aim name fulloferik...

Prime

Could it be the motherboard? I usually see good OC speeds with the nForce2 boards like NF7-S or a7n8x deluxe

Yes but he has the VIA KT400 chipset mobo. I think it only has a /5 divider which means he'll only do high 180s safe FSB at the most.

Hey guys.....appreciate all the feed back. Optimus Prime, for starters, I am running at 170 @ 12.5 @ 1.65 volts. Second, my memory is PNY 512 DDR 333 MHz ram. And third, the error messages are OS based (eg. can't find video driver, wants to reactivate winxp. etc.)
All my attempts seem to post just fine. Just when I get into windows and start doing things (eg benchmarking, video gaming, CD burning, etc) is when I start getting my errors.
All the help is greatly appreciated....hope you can help me out some more. Thanks in advance to all again!!!

Yeah there we go. 1.65 Vcore is not enough, gradually up it to 1.8.
PC2700 also does high 180s on average so that's your target FSB, not higher.

Two possibilities. One, your CPU can only do 2125 MHz @ stock voltage. Two, your RAM cannot do 170 MHz FSB @ current voltage and timing.

Raise Vcore and see if it helps, then try higher Vdimm... good luck

Well guys, thanks again for all the replies. I am still unable to go any higher than what I started out at. I tried raising the voltage up to 180, but I still get random shut downs, errors, etc.
What voltage should my ram be set at? Also, is there anything else that I can try. Again thanks for all the replies.

Ok, lets take this slowly. First, you need to find out what your max FSB is without CPU in the equation. Set the multi real low, like 8 or lower. Then set your memory timing to most aggressive. If you have PCI/AGP bus lock, lock it to 33/66 MHz. Now run memtest86 and see if your memory passes. Raise the FSB slowly if your memtest86 continues to pass. Once memtest86 fails, then raise the VDIMM one notch. Usually 0.1 V. Run memtest86 again. Repeat this step untill you can't go any higher w/ FSB. Most memory can usually take the highest voltage mobos can dish out. You can relax the timing of the memory to get higher FSB, but unless you get much higher FSB with relaxed memory timing, it's better to leave it at tight timing. Once you have the highest FSB, make a note of it. This is your highest possible FSB with your memory. Now, set the multi to something that will make the CPU run just a little higher than stock speed with the new FSB. Does it boot up ok? At this point, you can raise the multi and run Prime95 to see how high you can raise the multi and run the system stable. Once you get error from Prime95, raise the Vcore and try again. Once you can't raise the Vcore anymore or choose not to (because of heat), lower the FSB just a little bit. Run Prime95 overnight to see if it runs stable. Now, your new multi x FSB is your CPU speed.

-EDIT-
And hopefully it's higher than your current setting Good luck!

That was a nice short how-to.
Saved to file!

OK, don't mean to sound stupid, but where do you look for your or set your memory timing?
What should your memory voltage be set at as default? Again, thanks for all the help.....I am off to do some reading up on memory timing thing............

Memory timing should be in your BIOS under advanced chipset setting or something... Default memory voltage is 2.5V for most...