Need help with my FSB

Ok i appear to have hit a wall. I cant seem to get over 204X11.5. everytime i try to up the FSB my system becomes unstable. I lower the multiplier to like 6.5 just to see what my max stable FSB would be and 3dmark03 crashes at anything over 204. I upped all the voltages and lower my meemory timings but nothing seems to help. My AGP is locked and my pci bus is empty.
Im thinking it could be 1 of 2 things. It may be my power supply. My +5 and +12 are constantly dipping below the normal. +5 is usually around 4.7 and +3 is like 2.7.
Or im thinking my northbridge could be over heating.
(My setup is rig 1 in sig)
Give me some opinions Please. Ive posted this a few times in the past couple months in a few categories. Hoping maybe this is the right one for some help.

Your +3.3 is lowish. Is this monitored with software, or with a multimeter?

If you want, you could try replacing the Asus northbridge heatsink. Active-cool it like Abit cools their NB's. ThermalTake makes good northbrigde coolers. 8)

First of all, what are your memory timings? You have very good memory there so I wouldn't think that's the problem, but just in case, try setting Vcore to 1.75 or 1.8, set Vdimm to 3.0 or so (it won't hurt it) and then boot to Memtest86 and run it all night. If Memtest fails, then you are probably going to have to settle for 200Mhz...

I have noticed that the 3DMark benchmarks are VERY picky about the stability of a system. I doubt your northbridge is overheating at only 4 MHz over spec... it's an nForce... my nForce2 on my DFI runs 3DMark just fine at 210, 220 and higher...

First check to see if your memory is good. If it's not, there's your problem. If it's good as per Memtest, it very well could be your PSU... what brand/Wattage is it?

Does your mobo allow you to overvolt the NB? Have you tried that? I needed to overvolt my NB to get past 206.8. Now I can get to 212.8 with NB at 2.75V.

Excellent some helpers AH thank you. First my 3.3 was monitored software. Second i have tried my memory at a bunch of different settings. My pc sets it to 3336 @11.5x204 but if i go lower its not stable @ 204 ive tried going higher as well. Also my vdimm max is 2.8 I believe.(A7N8X DEL.) Also Im not sure about overvolt NB(HELP HERE SOMEONE). Ok now for MEMTEST, ive run it but am not sure how it works. Are there like 7 tests and you have to pass all 7 tests continuously?If so my ram only did like 99% even on the first time i ran the tests.I appreciate the help guys. Im still happy with the hardware where it is now but might as well at least learn how to get the most out of it. TY

Franchize said:

Ok i appear to have hit a wall. I cant seem to get over 204X11.5. everytime i try to up the FSB my system becomes unstable. I lower the multiplier to like 6.5 just to see what my max stable FSB would be and 3dmark03 crashes at anything over 204. I upped all the voltages and lower my meemory timings but nothing seems to help. My AGP is locked and my pci bus is empty.
Im thinking it could be 1 of 2 things. It may be my power supply. My +5 and +12 are constantly dipping below the normal. +5 is usually around 4.7 and +3 is like 2.7.
Or im thinking my northbridge could be over heating.
(My setup is rig 1 in sig)
Give me some opinions Please. Ive posted this a few times in the past couple months in a few categories. Hoping maybe this is the right one for some help.

Click to expand...

In my experience, a +5v dropping to 4.7 could cause problems. Do you have highs and lows for those lines (it may just be low reporting of voltages)?

Incidently, just because you don't have anything in any of your PCI slots does not mean there is nothing on you PCI bus. Many motherboards have built-in devices that reside on the PCI bus. Overclocking the PCI bus can cause problems with onboard devices. I believe, however, that locking the AGP bus on your board also locks the PCI bus, as the AGP speed is just twice the PCI speed.

One other thing, when you lowered your memory timings, you made the numbers bigger, right? 2-2-2-6 is much harder on memory than 2.5-3-3-7...

I was always under the impression that the hard drives were running on the PCI Bus... thats why the HDD could get corrupted when overclocking the VIA chipsets without a PCI Lock...

Yes well i dont have any hardware connected to pci bus. Only agp. Everything is onboard except my soundcard which is us. Ok now for MEMTEST, ive run it but am not sure how it works. Are there like 7 tests and you have to pass all 7 tests continuously?If so my ram only did like 99% even on the first time i ran the tests.

everything that is onboard is using the pci bus, but i think we concluded that it is locked