Where do I go from here????

[matpoh]

I have a small gaming machine that I use to take to lan parties and do a little overclocking with. I have come to a point that I cannot figure out what to do now to get this machine stable when overclocked at all. My goal is simply to get this thing stable in games at 200mhz fsb. Here is what I have for parts

ASRock K7VM4 motherboard. 333fsb, 333ram pc2700...VIA chipset
AMD Approved 400W power supply
Barton 2500 cpu (locked)
Corsair XMS PC3200 512mb
ATI Radeon 9600Pro (not overclocked) 3.9 catalyst driver.

The reason I chose that mb is I had to have a microATX board to fit in the case I was using and since its made by Asus and has some decent oc options in bios I thought why not.

So the normal fsb is 166. When I try to raise the fsb at all, the machine will boot into XP, but will usually freeze within 5-10 minutes. If I raise it up to 200, the machine wont boot. I have tried raising the voltage a little but it doesnt seem to help, and I guess I am a bit nervous to raise it too far.

any suggestions????

 

[Supertrucker]

that board doesnt support a 1/6 divider or pci lock, to run 200fsb would require a 40mhz pci clock and 80mhz agp, most hardware cant handle those speeds, but it shouls be able to do 175~180 easy enough.

whats your case airflow like? are you using the stock hsf? do you have a multimeter to check your 12/5 volt rails from the molex on your psu? if heat or power are the limiting factors, raising the voltage will only make it worse

 

[matpoh]

The box braggs about something called Hybrid booster? Which if I'm reading it right, allows the fsb to be changed without affecting the pci/agp clocks. If I understand it correctly.

For cooling I have SLK-947U heatsink with Vantec Tornado 92mm fan. (125cfm)

Temps are about 38-41c after gaming so I think I have eliminated that route. Its a REALLY small case with 92mm intake fan and 92mm exhaust. I cut out the protective grills on both intake and exhaust for better airflow.

Dont have a ps tester, but I guess I am leaning to ps issues holding me back.

 

[johnny5c]

Faster ram might help too. When I had pc2700 in my main rig, it would lock up at 170fsb. After upgrading to pc3500, I can go over 190 with no problems.