Need a little help/ suggestions/ jog my memory...

[CrystalMethod]

Ok, got a celeron 800 two weeks ago. Ran it for a good week, just to burn in at regular speed. Oc'd it a couple of days ago to 922Mhz with the bus at 115. Problem is I can't get it any higher. System won't even boot. Here are the system specs.
Asus P3V4X, Celeron 800 fc-ppga, MSI MS-6905 converter board, 512 M apacer ram (infineon chips), Voodoo 3 2500 AGP, SB Live!, realtek net card, DXR2 dvd decoder card, 48X creative cdrom (I think it's a panasonic, but I'm not 100% sure), and 5x Creative dvd (No clue what make). I have two 80mm fans pulling air in up front, and one 80mm fan up top (right above the procsessor)blowing out. The heatsink is from a 933EB (lapped), and I've switched out the fan with a intel 1Ghz fan. Asus probe is reading 23°C MB, and 39°C procsessor. I know for a fact that my Asus temp monitor is 10° off on the procsessor which would make my CPU temp somewhere around 29°C. Heat is not a problem as of yet. I'm trying to figure out why it won't even boot at a higher setting. From what I understand I should at least get something, even for an instant, but I get nothing. I'd like to at least hit 1Ghz, stable, but if I've hit this particular CPU's limit, there's really not much I can do till I get another one, and have another go at it. I'm just thinking that I've forgotten to do something, or maybe I need to get a new MB.

[Placid]

Did you try setting your memory timings to thier slowest settings?

[CrystalMethod]

Just tried all the different settings for the memory, and no dice. D'OH!
I'm forgetting to do something stupid simple, and I can't remember what it is...

[JuDgE_DrEaD]

my .02cents: could be your divider thats causing your video card not to run, if its set to something like 2/3 which it probly is since 100(defaultbus celeron fsb) divided by 1.5(2/3) is 66 which is default agp bus speed. Also like placid said try to set your ram to cas3 if it isnt alredy there

[Zuck Gou :)]

Have you oc'd using that Realtek card already? I've had poor experience with them.

Maybe try pulling everything but ur vid card and see if its a card being a problem......

(though at 115 it shouldn't be too much for a PCI card, I think thats 37mhz? )

[CrystalMethod]

Newp, tried all the settings for the memory, no luck.
Grrrrr... this is going to bother the S**T outta me all day at work tomorrow.

[Placid]

You can try raising the vcore voltage a little and see if it will boot. Just keep it under 2.0v and watch your temps.

[CrystalMethod]

Nope, tried everything suggested, and still no luck. Might be as far as this board will let me go, or as far as this CPU will go. But, still seems kinda fishy to me that it runs at 922 fine and won't even boot at 960. It's not the cards, not the memory, not the cooling. Anything else we've forgotten?

[Lancelot]

Just a thought; did you flash the latest BIOS (with Celeron 800 support listed!). Cuz when I got my 800, before I updated my BIOS, I had strange sh*t like the PCI divider always being 1/4 even at 100FSB. Mine boots at 126FSB (1008Mhz) at default voltages, and cheap CL3 RAM, so this is really strange. Can you try the chip in a friend's rig or something? So you could at least find out if it is the chip or not...

[CrystalMethod]

Unfortunately, I can't try it in my brother's or my friends system as they are ungodly paranoid that I may fry something...
...and these are the two that got me into computers in the first place, go figure. I'm going to try toying with the jumper settings again, I might have missed something the first or second time around. But don't really have the time right now to play with it. *sigh* I hate having to wait for the weekend to get anything done. Thanks for all the suggestions and stuff, I'll let ya'll know how it goes as soon as I finish rebuilding this damned engine.

PS: After working on car, remember to wash hands first, before touching keyboard & mouse...

[batboy]

Cooling....get rid of that junky retail HSF and get a good CPU cooler. Then use a good thermal paste to install it. Lose the network card. If all the RAM slots are full, pull one of the modules. The RAM is rated at PC-133, right?

[CrystalMethod]

It's not the cooling. I'm sitting at 27°C@ 922Mhz, going to 960Mhz isn't going to raise temps that far. If cooling was the problem, it'd at minimum Anymore cooling, and I'll be under ambient air temp and dealing with condensation. If I put in a bigger HSF, I lose 2 dimm slots, block air flow to the HSF, and have to remove my top exaust 80mm fan. I have an Alpha, tried it, same temps with the 933 heatsink+1Ghz Intel fan. Both Dimms are PC133 Apacer with Infineon chips (I still have 2 free slots). I'm almost positive I'm not setting the jumpers right, or I've forgotten to do something in the bios. Raising my vcore past 1.85 is not in my list of smart things to do (works for some people, I'm not willing to try with a CPU that's less than a month old). I'm into oc'ing, but I'm also not into wasting a perfectly good procsessor. Just thought that someone might have forgotten something similar, and could point it out for me. I'll figure it out on the weekend. Thanks to all again!

[Lancelot]

You're right it's not the cooling. With this warm weather outhere it gets 30C 'ambient' here in my attick, and my CPU temps go upto 47C full load and it's fine...

[batboy]

Your first problem is believing it's not one problem or the other and refusing to keep trying stuff. I guess I have no idea what I'm talking about, huh? We've told you twice that network cards are notorious for hating to be overclocked. Have you actually pulled the network card out and tried?

You can't go lower than ambient temp with air cooling, it's impossible. First you say that CPU temp is 39 degrees and now you're claiming it's 29 degrees. I don't believe that, no way. Certainly not CPU load temps with that worthless CPU heatsink you're using. I'm guessing it's 39 degrees idle temps and everytime you boot the temps skyrocket and it crashes. Initial booting really heats up a CPU quickly to unbelieveable temps and there is no way to monitor those temps without using a remote temp probe that is not run off the computer. What temp monitoring program are you using and why do you believe the temps are actually 10 degrees lower than what is being reported? Are you looking at load temps in real time or having to go into the BIOS to look? What are you doing to load the CPU? You never did say what thermal paste you're using or if you're even using any.

Dude, just to humor me and to prove me wrong, please pull the network card out and then properly reinstall that Alpha cooler using a good thermal paste and see what happens. If I'm wrong, then it's because your system can't handle being that far out of spec. I never could get my last system to run stable at 120 MHz FSB using a 1/3 PCI bus divider. You might need to somehow reach a higher speed to make use of the 1/4 PCI bus divider, assuming your motherboard and chipset has that option.

I'm just trying to help you out here, if you don't want my help, then just say so. Last winter I couldn't figure out why I couldn't overclock my system any higher too. I was also sure (just like you) that it wasn't a cooling problem. A senior member here on the forum (Tim) convinced me to try more cooling mods. Amazing, it worked. Trust me, you can never have enough cooling. Heat is the enemy. Good luck.

[CrystalMethod]

I do appreciate the help, but I don't think you're reading my posts properly or I'm not expressing myself well enough. To cool my system anymore, I would have to water cool it (hence the condensation problem). I've already tried pulling all the cards one by one till I was left with just the video card, first thing I did after, checking voltages and jumpers, and pulling/ changing/ switching memory. I'm using the Asus PC probe right now which I know is 10°C higher than what acual temps are. I have a indoor/outdoor temperature monitor that I had hooked up to my celeron 400, and found out my pc probe was 10° off, but I need to shave it down some more to fit it between the heatsink and procsessor . That's where the 10° difference in my temperature postings is. The only other thing I can think of at this point is that my current MB & Cpu combination, just won't go over 922Mhz.

[CrystalMethod]

Well, I finally found the problem. My converter card is screwed. Gotta send it back and wait to get a new one. Thanks to all for the help.