New to A64, having trouble with AV8

Just received a 3000+ winchester 939 A64 and Abit AV8. After installing windows and getting everything smooth, I decided to try my OC luck with this new type of processor (previous experience with XP's). Not knowing anything about HTT and with only my knowledge of XP's, I tried to OC this chip to no avail. I got it to load windows at 250x9 but windows crashed shortly after loading. (Lock up). I have 2x512 Geil ddr500 pc4000 RAM running in dual channel at 200 fsb? (thought it was supposed to run at 250 by default, see I already don't understand the A64 world.) I read up on the stickied threads but still have no figured out how to solve these problems. Am I just stupid or is my ram not supported by this mobo?

abit av8 latest bios
x800 pro 256mb
2x512 ddr500 Geil dual chan
3000+ winchester A64 939
Thermaltake W0014 Silent Purepower 480W
Thermaltake Venus 12 (Currently idles at 39C)

What would you suggest for my settings on everything? (transport, fsb, memory (divide? I thought AMD ran best at 1:1 and saw performance decreases if messed with?)

Hi,
I have the abit av8 mobo with an a64 3500 Newcastle. Almost the same setup as you. First thing I did was lower my ram to 133 and raise the vcore to 1.65, this is the highest recommended vcore for the Newcastle so I didn't go higher. Well with the ram set to 133 I started raising the fsb using default multi. On my cpu it is 11. I reached 232mhz. That is where my cpu stopped at the vcore I was using. More vcore may have given me some more speed but I was just wanting to find the limit at the vcore I was using.

Next I lowered my multi to 6 and set my ram to default, 400 ddr in bios. I then started raising the fsb again and reached 310fsb before it wouldn't boot any more. This was my rams top ddr setting 620ddr. Wish it would run there but it won't.

So now I know where my cpu craps out at and that my ram can handle the speed my cpu will go to. Now I dropped the multi to 10 and raised the fsb to 250 and it boots and runs fine I think, not!

One more thing to mess with, the LTD bus. This is where I find the over clock success of your system at higher fsb is gained. When you get in the range of 250fsb, reguardless of what ram speed you are running. This needs to be set to 3 or in my case I can get away with 4 at 245fsb. If you leave it at default setting of 5 and try to get above 220 fsb. I don't think it will be stable. All though your system may be different than mine, it is some thing to deal with. Try setting it to 3 reguardless of any other settings. Test your system for being stable and then bump it to 4. Test again.

I'm sure your ram will take any fsb you can toss at it and you should be able to run at a LTD setting of 4

Hope you understand what I'm saying and it helps. I just hope I didn't confuse you more, because the a64's are different than the xp's as far as overclocking but when you do get one working well, it really does a good job.

Later
RGP

PS Do raise the ram voltage to 2.80v in bios, I would think your ram could use the voltage and it should be rated to at least that. I also bumped all the other voltages by .05 except for the agp voltage.

Without repeeting everything that was said in response, I would just like to point out that YOU MUST lower your LTD bus from 5X to at least X4 if not 3X
Everything else is pointless if you do not when overclocking.
The HTT or LTD bus is maxed out at 1000mhz
So 5X 250 is 1250.... way to much..

Stay below 1000mhz on the LTD bus.

PS. The AV8 does NOT like my Corsair RAM twinX pro Pc4000. I must run it at 333 speeds. If not it crashes..

Thanks for the help. I will have to try out your suggestions when I start working on it again. After building the whole thing, setting up windows, then tweaking around with the overclock i was up for 12 straight hours just doing those things (well about 40 minutes just for the format, go huge HDs!!! ) So would you suggest trying to get the LTD bus as close to 1000 as possible for best performance? Such as putting it at 245 and 4x instead of 250 and 3x?