What did I miss?

Ok heres the specs(this rig was built solely to play Battlefield2)
athlon3000
chaintech/vfn4ultra
1gig pny optima ram pc3200 ddr400 2@512
msi gforce6600/128 mg
550 antec true power
Aspire xcruiser case

Ok heres what I did to overclock
went into bios set FSB to 211 up from 200mhz and bumped the cpu voltage from 3.5 to 3.55, also on the vid card software overclock to captain settings(sorry don,t know specs) at post said cpu was 1.9 up from 1.8 ghz and said the memory was 422 up from 400mhz. Now this settup played sweet on BF2 for a solid 3 weeks no problems all high settings in the game, then some problems started popping up(lag and "problems with your connection"), set vid card back to normal, still same deal, downloaded GameXP problems went away, then CTD so I put everything back to stock and everything is running good(Im, even able to still play BF2 in high settings)
My question is did I miss something when I went to overclock?
Such as setting the timings for the ram?
I seen something in the stickies about the ram but I really didn,t quite understand it.
So if I do my setting like I had above how should I do the ram?
Any Ideas would be appreciated

It could've been your ram or your motherboard or the graphic card or the cpu that didn't take the OC very well. That's why, usually you must find the limit of each component before OCing everything.

About the ram, it has certain timings (2.5-3-3-8 is usually the default at 200)
Now you have to find the stock timings of your ram (from the manufacturer). Maybe you'll have to loosen the timings a bit (like 3-4-4-10). You'll have to test to find out. Check out memtest86+ to test the ram, prime 95 to check final OC stability.

It has to run more than 8h without any error to be considered stable. 3 tests are possible: blend for the ram, large ftt for cpu+ram and small ftt for cpu.

But By loosing the timings you might loose overall performance, so bench your settings (sisoft sandra, 3dmark...)

for a soley to play BF2...dont forget to upgrade to 2GB of RAM. the difference in loading times will make it worth it.

One possibility that could have limited you would be that you need to lower the default LDT multiplier from 5x to 4x. These CPUs are made to operate at 1000MHz of LDT.
At default, speeds are set 5 x 200MHz = 1000MHz. But when you bump the HTT to 211MHz, the LDT is now 5 x 211MHz = 1055MHz. This is only slightly over 1000MHz LDT, and thus probably isn't THE problem your having. Most CPUs can handle upwards of 1100MHz LDT or more.

When your testing maximum CPU speed, it is essential that you eliminate RAM from causing instability, so you don't mis-interpret the instability as being caused by the CPU. To do so, set your RAM to use a low divider. I would suggest 1:2 (Running RAM at half the HTT of the CPU), since the memory controller doesn't seem to mind. If you try using odd dividers like 3:4, the memory controller may not like it.

Also...

ZipSnipe said:

and bumped the cpu voltage from 3.5 to 3.55

Click to expand...

I'm assuming you mean from 1.5v to 1.55v, because...
A) The motherboard will not allow you to set voltage that high
B) The CPU would be dead in less than a second.

Yeah thats what I mean't, thanx, when in these forums I always see references to dividers such as the one you mentioned IWasHungry. However I can not find anything that looks like a divider type setting, my mobo is chaintech vnf4ultra with pheonix bios. And to answer Steve I do plan on getting another gig however currently I am able to play and load BF2 and Sp.Forces pretty much problem free with the set up I have and I have all settings in the game to max and my wife will be on my other pc with webcam and yahoo chat goin at the same time, I have bellsouth dsl lite(cheapest), I just thought it would be cool to get more out of my system then what I,m getting now. Thanx guys I greatly appreciate your help, I think it might be a toss up on the ram or the vid card not liking my previous OC

Dividers usually don't show up in the BIOS as 1:1, 5:6, 7:10, etc.
The item that needs to be changed is usually called CPU/Memory Frequency Ratio or something like that. If you select it, you'll be given 200MHz (1:1), 166MHz (5:6), 140MHz (7:10), and 100MHz (1:2). Or you may be given similar increments, except in DDR form (400MHz, 333MHz, 280MHz, 200MHz).

I'm not familiar with that board, so I don't know what OC options you have. You may have to update the BIOS first.