in need of some guidance

i am new to overclocking and i still dont understand a few things. right now i am focusing on the memory. i would like to adjust the timing in the bios to obtain maximum performance. i know where the adjustments are located in my bios but i dont understand exactly what they do. i was wondering if there is a procedure to follow to obtain the best possible configuration. my motherboard is a intel D865PERLL and my memory is Kingston value ram PC3200 1g (2@512) running in dual channel mode. i tried changing the setting to "user agresive" and my computer wouldnt boot. i had to leave it off for a while and then it would reset itself when i turned it on. so i would like to define the settings manually.

Tras / latency / ras to cas / ras precharge

auto setting is... 8 / 3.0 / 3 / 3

aggressive setting is... 5 / 2.5 / 2 / 2 (this setting would not boot)

how do i figure out the best values to use?

KVR is not designed to run at such tight timings as the aggressive setting therefore it didn't boot. It might boot at 2.5-3-3-6 or so, but probably not much faster timings. What is the coding on your Kingston chips. Sometimes that stuff comes with very good chips that will in fact overclock quite nicely. I don't know much about your board and how well it tweaks. As a general rule Intel boards are not designed with overclocking as a high priority.

Here are a few links to articles with "overclocking theory" that might help you sort through things a little bit.

First is our very own OCForums sticky:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=263753

A good general guide:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/OCguide/

and a P4 guide:
http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/How-To/Overclocking-Your-P4-800FSB/

and the last one is a Memory guide:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=15&type=expert

Get you a big cup of hot coffee and get started. You've got homework.