First Overclocking adventure - not so good.

Hi. Yesterday, i finally recibed two Corsair 3200C2 XMS stick of 256MB each. After doing some research and reading - for the second time - the Overclocking guides and FAQs found here and here , i though i was ready, but unfortunately, it was not quite so.

I'm currently using a Epox 8RDA+ mobo and an Athlon XP 2400 set up. But unfortunately, everytime i set the Multiplayer to 10.5 -or any other convination/setting, be it lower or higher-, save the settings into the CMOS and reboot, i always get this message;

"Warning! CPU has been changed or Overclock fail. Please re-enter CPU settings in the CMOS and remember to save before quit."

That is just part of the problem, after setting the BIOS the last stable configuration, my computer would start to behave on a rather weird maner, for example; the Secondary HDD, would fail, it takes longer to boot into Windows and so forth. I usually have to turn it off for a couple of minutes before, everything goes back to normal.

I'm some what confused -not discoraged ) by this results, i though that, after getting some branded name RAM, things would be different, in the sence that, i'd be able to overclock my hardware much further.

As always, i would appreciate very much, if anyone with more overclocking experince, would reply with his or hers input on the matter.

Thank you.

More info!
What are your mem timings?
Whats your FSB
tell us about the codes on your chip.
Bios settings?

must be a option in your bios give out that warning you msut turn it off before you can change anything. Some Epox 8RDA+ users can help you since I dont ahve that MOBO or you can read the mobo manual to find out...

I used to have an Epox 8RDA+ and I loved it, then I kinda killed it.

I have a question, What is or what does "Memory Frequency", is this what is causingl my attemps to overclock to fail? Mine is currently set on "Auto", but it can be set to 100%, 200% etc or "By SPD".

-Phoenix Award BIOS v6.0.0 GP

-Memory timings, i have yet to, "toy" with them. Anywho, i though that messing around with the memory timings settings was only after finding the max FSB?

-BIOS settings are currently on default, i did however, changed them to "expert" mode -but never touched the Memory Frequency settings - before attemption to raise the FSB.

-Like i said, i have an Athlon XP 2400 and 266FSB.

I have an 8RDA+ Rev.2 board. A common problem with this variety of Epox boards is that they will not run with the 10 or 10.5 multis. I believe that also included the older 8RDA+ boards as well.
Also, after you F10 (save and exit) do not re-boot! The machine should re-boot itself.
How are you resetting the bios to the "last stable configuration"? Are you using the cmos jumper?

266 FSB?? Turn it down! Take your fsb to 200 max to start with. Set your RAM to 100% with a low multi of maybe 8 or 9 and try again. This will keep your cpu closer to spec speed until you find the problem.

Cuda said:

I have an 8RDA+ Rev.2 board. A common problem with this variety of Epox boards is that they will not run with the 10 or 10.5 multis. I believe that also included the older 8RDA+ boards as well.
Also, after you F10 (save and exit) do not re-boot! The machine should re-boot itself.
How are you resetting the bios to the "last stable configuration"? Are you using the cmos jumper?

Click to expand...

After saving the settings or pressing F10 the computer would automatically reboot itself, there is no need to manually do that. Also, i'm manually resetting everything back to the last stable configuartion, no need to mess around with the CMOS jumpers yet.

Let me clear something up, when i said that my mobo had a 266Mz FSB, i meant 133Mhz FSB. Anyways, i'll try setting the Mult below 10 and see if it works.