Weird overclocking problems

[Hype]

Hi all,
I'm having a really weird problems trying to overclock my 3.2Ghz Intel processor. I've changed my mb to an abit ic7-max3 and fitted a waterchill cooler on the northbridge and the processor, which have very low temps (about 38C at idle), so I thought this combonation should be good for overclocking. I also bought some seriesously fast OCZ PC4000 low latency memory so I could try and get a really good overclock on this system.

So I tried slowly clocking it up, starting with 210fsb, but it wouldnt take it, no mater what I put the system at it was highly unstable and wouldnt even post at anything above 205!
After a while I just put the fsb back to 200, but now the system is unstable even at stock speed! Currently the highest stable speed I can get the system to is 3.06Ghz (188fsb I think).

So my question is: what the hells going on here!

Everything was setup for a decent overclock - I had the core voltage up to 1.6V, the memory up to 2.9V (which is actually covered by the OCZ warranty) and had AGP/PCI fixed so I cant see whats gone wrong here.

Does anyone have any thought as to what might have gone wrong? Here is the full spec of my system:

- Abit IC7-MAX3 mobo
- 3.2Ghz Pentium 4
- 1Gb OCZ PC4000 EL memory
- Waterchill on processor and Northbridge
- Radian 9800XT 256mb graphics
- 420 Watt PSU (pretty crappy really, I didnt chose it, runs 3.3V at 3.4 and has questionable voltages elsewhere - could this be a problem?)
- CD, DVD soundcard etc etc

temps are about 30 for the motherboard and 38 for the processor at idle.
At stock speed (3.2Ghz) the system does a hardcore freeze after the processor has been at load for more than 10 seconds, dispite the temps beening very cool.

I've tried changing the memory for some known good stuff and changing the motherboard... I'm all out of ideas.

Please help! I dont have to go buy anyother processor do I!?

[blockers]

Have you run that RAM in memtest? www.memtest86.com
It is possible that the PSU is the dodgy component. Have you have had the chip running at 3.2 with that PSU?

Suggests for PSU:
480watt Tagen
450watt CWT
They are cheaper options.

[mike_w]

Suggests for PSU:
450watt CWT
They are cheaper options.

I think the 450W CWT from Scan.co.uk has been changed to 3XS Meridian 450W. Still the same actual PSU I think (but don't take my word for it!)

[blockers]

I think the 450W CWT from Scan.co.uk has been changed to 3XS Meridian 450W. Still the same actual PSU I think (but don't take my word for it!)

Evidently they have changed it....£35inc VAT for a 450watt PSU, thats damn good value. Hadnt really appreciated it before.

Better update my basic hexus suggestion . 3XS Meridian 450W, xp2500-m, NF7-S and 2x512mb pc3200 corsair/OCZ, r9800pro.....heh

[GreenPiggy]

Not entirely sure that would be a symptom of a dodgy PSU. Some memory can go weird when you up the voltage so memtest is definitely the way to go first.
It can't hurt to get a new PSU though. I recommend the Tagan

[schrickvr6]

what have you got game accelerator set to?try Auto,Auto,Auto,Disabled,Disabled.

disable system and video bios cacheable ,also disable memory hole at 15m-16m.

[Hype]

Thanks for the replys,
I tried running memtest and something pretty strange happened... I got through one pass fine with no errors at all, but then the system just restarted when memtest got up to about 30% on the second pass.

Any ideas what this means? Wouldnt memtest be able to log the errors rather than just crashing?

[nakajima]

i think its your PSU. You need to get rid of the PSU if you want to overclock. Get a good antec or tagan one, something that has high +12V rail and stable rails. I dont think its your memory nor cpu

[steve threlfall]

I think the 450W CWT from Scan.co.uk has been changed to 3XS Meridian 450W. Still the same actual PSU I think (but don't take my word for it!)

Spot on, read it in the scan help forum