Overclocking Issues, + Questions

[Sammy_TicTac]

hi all,

I am having some problems with my system, so would appreciate some help:

My system is:

AMD 3500+ Venice 2.2ghz (@2.5ghz or 2.64ghz)
Antec Smartpower II 500W
Geforce 6200TC
160gb Seagate 7200.9 7200rpm
NEC ND3540A DVD+-RW (IDE)
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe MB
1x 1gb G-Skill (3,4,4,8)

I can easily overclock to 2.53ghz on Stock volts, (with regards to the heatsink, to be honest I am not sure exactly how good it is as I bought the computer OEM a while back. All i know is that it is a 'Cooler Master' and keeps things fairly cool – my 3500+ peaks at only 40C at stock volts on a Large FFT prime test.)

My computers seems to have a very small 'threshold' for instability – e.g. I either will not be able to boot into windows, or it will be prime stable. e.g. whenever Im testing in Windows with clockgen, and raising my FSB testing the CPU or whatever, everything will always freeze before I get errors or windows restarts (like guides say should happen.) Is this relatively normal?

I have also had a few other weird problems – e.g. is fine at 2.53ghz, Prime stable for hours e.t.c., and then suddenly when I turn on the computer its too unstable to get to the bios. After resetting the on board battery and re-overclocking things were fine again, and that hasnt happens since. It still concerns me though.

I got a bit more ambitious earlier today and pushed my processer to 2.64ghz at 1.48v (I was upping clockgen every 90s and prime testing and I didnt actually get any errors at 2.64ghz, I was just satisfied at how far I had got already.) I let that run for another 15mins and that was alright.

However, in running an OCCT torture test, and doing some other general things, everything keeps freezing completely so I have to restart with the reset button on my case (how bad for the computer is using the reset button?) yet its 32m SuperPi Stable and everything. ..so why does everything keep freezing like this.

My Ram is this stuff here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81868
Although its not nearly as good as the sample theyve got there (goes at about 230mhz at 3,4,4,8 and 210mhz and 2.5,3,3,6). I'm not sure if that is causing any problems.

Finally, I am getting an annoying IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD, from time to time that is worrying – I just had it earlier but had not had it for a month. Is this unstable overclock related?

Thanks – Sorry for all the random questions everywhere.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Yes, the bluescreen is most likely related to the overclock. Turn down the OC until you stop bluescreening.

 

[gOJDO]

I have Venice 3200+ at 2.8GHz stable on Asus A8N5X. You have better mainboard and CPU, so it is logic that your system will overclock higher. I've noticed something wrong about your system. You have 1 module of 1GB instead of 2 modules of 512MB. You are using half(one DDR channel or 64bits) of the bandwidth supported(two DDR channels or 128bits) by your CPU(s939) and mainboard(Asus nForce4 SLI).
Tell me the overclocking settings you have used and the overclocking abilities of your hardware. Tell me this info, so we can see how your system can be tweaked to get better results and stability:
0. OCed HTT Clock;
1. OCed HTT multiplier;
2. OCed CPU voltage;
3. RAM modules chips model and RAM default freqfency, voltage and CMD Rate;
4. OCed RAM freqfency(or memory divider), latencies(whole table) and voltage;
5. BIOS version, RAM max voltage, CPU max voltage, PCI&PCIe OCed clock(or clock mode-synchroned or asynchroned), PEG Link settings, Other Enabled/Disabled mainboard hardware features;
6. HDD interface(IDE/SATA/SATA2?) and mode(IDE/SATA IDE/RAID?);
7. OS and OS version, drivers and version installed, firewall (type, settings), antivirus and other anti-spy/ad/mal-ware software, other system and OS concerned software.
I need all of this to see if you have used right or wrong hardware settings, "bad" drivers and system software settings and to see how your system can be overclocked better.