can this be right?!?

[TTo34]

Ok everyone, here's my situation....

I built my computer about 2 weeks ago, and in the meantime i've been burning it in, biding my time to overclock it. Here's my specs if it isn't in my sig already.

2500+ Barton AQZEA 0341 RPMW (locked )
Abit NF7-S (2.0)
2x256 Mushkin Lvl 2 Pc 3500
Thermaltake 480W Silent Purepower
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9700 Pro
Thermalright SLK900A + Vantec Thermoflow

In that 2 week span, I've had troubles with my vid card using cat 3.9s, my system was rebooting all the time, and i finally thought to check my videocard drivers. After reinstalling cat 3.7s, everything was fine again. System has been running ok, seems a little slow though. I've run all the 3dmark tests (3dmark2001 SE and 3dmark03), and have gotten ~15,000, and ~4800 respectively on them. So the testing has been fine; on paper this system seems right on the mark. I've also had problems with my case, as my 2 back exhaust fans never worked. So I popped about a 20 inch house fan right in front of the opened case, and am just shooting tons of CFM right into the system, so everything is cool enough. Round 40C CPU max load.

Here's my dilemma, since the system has been stable as of late I've done the whole overclocking ordeal. What I've found is that I top out around 200 fsb, at 11x multiplier. No matter what Vcore I set, the instability still remains. I've upped the Vdimm to 2.8, and the Vcore to 1.9. It boots to windows ok, but when running any stress test, it craps out. I'm running 192 x 11 right now with 1.725 Vcore and 2.8 Vdimm, and stability seems ok.

Now I know my system should be able to do much more than this overclocking-wise; this just doesn't seem right. I've seen people getting up to 200+ x 11 with stock Vcore or minimal Vcore changes, so I can't imagine why my cpu would be so power hungry. I haven't found the time yet to run Memtest86, so I guess the possibility of bad memory exists. I haven't tried messing around with the memory timings too much, cuz i'm not too knowledgable with that area. CAS timings are at optimal in the BIOS right now, at 2.2.2.6. I've heard the mushkin lvl 2 pc3500 are Winbond BH-5, so I should be able to run 2.2.2.5. all the way to 200+ no problem. This is all just frustrating right now, my system seems slow at times. I play a lot of America's Army, and getting in and out of that program takes awhile, but once it gets back to windows the computer seems to be ok again.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong here? Any help is much appreciated. I could use any tips as far as overclocking is concerned.

I'm gonna try running Prime95 all night at this 192 x 11 and see how that works out. But in the meantime, thanks again, and sorry for the lengthy thread, I just wanted to fill the whole situation in.

 

[Sentential]

...man im sorry to hear ur havin so many problems. I can relate. My first college PC had a 5200FX in it and a bad stick of RAM. Needless to say its been a living hell up till now.

I bought a stick of Mushkin 3500 Level 1 Black. I couldnt be happier. With a little voltage Im sure you could get those timings, but run memtest to make sure that ur not hurting anything.

Now as for your processer, using Prime @ stock FSB and GHZ with an insanely high V-core (like 1.8) and running it for a few hours relieves many problems. I got atleast 200 more Mhz from buring my CPU in. For more details I would ask around.

Dont worry tho, eventually ur PC will come around like mine did. Also stick with the Cat 3.7 or 3.10. If your comp still seems slugish, crank up the speed of the Core and mem of your 9700. 8 pipeline cards OC exponentialy when compared to their 4 pipe brethren, so every mhz counts.

And if ALL ELSE FAILES, sell it on ebay and get a gaurnteed unlocked T-bred or Barton from one of the online shops that tell you what stepings they have. Or go to Comp Usa and pick one out urself.

Hope it goes better!

 

[FIRESTARR357]

Sometimes hardware just does not get along, but I have used alot of motherboards and some stettings work good and some not. My MSI K7N2 would not go over 180fsb unless i changed the memory settings and my epox 8rda3g won't do anything over 200fsb unless my memory is set to 11-3-3-2.5 with those settings i can hit 11x 220 that is what i am running now. Change you mem settings and look under motherboards Abit and ask there what they think cause almost all the motherboards i have used have sweet spots that they run stable at. Good luck man