Whats holding my overclock back?

Right here we go...

I have been trying to overclock my Pentium 4 from 2.53 Ghz to the maxium stable overclock i can get.... I can reach 2.8 but after some gaming the computer crashes... I am thinking that it is my RAM i am using?... only 233Mhz DDR...

I can keep the CPU at 2.78Ghz stable at the moment... Heating is not a problem because i am only hitting 38C Idle and 41C Full load....

Could it be my PSU aswell???


PSU: 230Watts
CPU: Pentium 4B Northwood 2.53Ghz FSB533
Motherboard: MS6533 (Latest BIOS)
RAM: 233Mhz DDR
Graphics: Hercules Radeon 8500LE 250/500
SoundCard: Creative Audigy 2 ZS!
Hard Drives: Master(WD800JB-00CRA1) Slave(ST310211A)
Capture Card: WinTV
CD-Roms: Master(JLMS DVD-ROM LTD163) Slave(Samsung CDRW/DVD SM-308B)
Network Card: Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

I am using CPUFSB... As my motherboard is OEM with no Overclocking Features....

Thankyou... Happy New Year!

a 230 W PSU could very well be a problem...

The 2.66, 533 mHz P4s aren't the best OCers either.

Run a monitoring utility like Motherboard Monitor 5... http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ and watch your voltages on the +12, +5 and +3.3 lines. For stability, 3% from nominal is good, 2% is best.
12V ==> 11.65 to 12.35V (3%) ==> 11.75 to 12.25V (2%)
5V ==> 4.85 to 5.15V (3%) ==> 4.9 to 5.1V (2%)
3.3V ==> 3.2 to 3.4V (3%) ==> 3.23 to 3.37V (2%)

If you are outside of these limits (either HIGH or LOW) look for a new power supply.

High capacity power supply reviews and guides...
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1841&p=20
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20030609/index.html
http://techreport.com/reviews/2003q3/psus/index.x?pg=1
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/power_supply/
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150384

My +12 and +5 are out.... Damnit... O well atleast my new PSU arrives on Tuesday with my new stuff e.g. Hard Drives etc....

Its a 420Watt one.. which is a big jump over this small one... ... Thanx for your help...

You're only going to go so far without additional CPU voltage (Vcore).

I suspect your PSU as well.

Make sure your AGI/PCI is locked at 66/33 too. As larva said try raising your vcore...just don't go above 1.7. Make sure to watch your temps as you raise the vcore. Higher FSB/vcore you go temps can go up fast if there isn't sufficient cooling.

and to see if its your ram you can change the ram ratio... something i wish i had :/

Ok thanx all, I will try that later after i have cleaned my bedroom

what brand off psu have u ordered ??

I ordered about nearly 2 weeks ago now a HiperPower PSU... I was really cut on money as i went over 76 pounds on my budget....

I have a 350watt True Antec PSU and I meet the 12v, 5v, 3.3v no problem at 3.4ghz with my 3.0c but the funny thing is the vcor I selected in the bios at 1.65v goes down to 1.50v - 1.54v. This is at Full 100%cpu load using 3 instances of Prime95. 2 for speed and 1 for memory. I am perfectly stable at this yet for some reason when i render it reboots.

If I increased the vcor to say 1.7 ill be at 1.7 while i idle and ill decrease to 1.6v but people say if you put it at 1.7 your facing the death of the cpu.

At 1.7v 3.5ghz every voltage reading was on par with the 2% yet the system stalls when running 3 instances of prime95. At 1.75v 3.5ghz same thing.

Im using the stock intel heatsink/fan. Is the voltage dropping cause of the heat? Im at 55c full load at 1.65v

My readings ae from MBM 5.3.5

Whats strange in MBM is that it says the tolerance level is 5% of the voltage line in the 3.3v, 12v, 5v although when i look at the current readings of these voltages it falls within the 2% gap of what the guy up top sudjested. Are you wanting me to take a percentage count of the current and the high or current and average?