Missing Something Basic With my Overclock

[Pulsar]

Ok. System:

Epox 8k5a3+ Motherboard
Kingston 3000 Ram w/ heatspreader
AMD 2400+ Tbred B
450 watt Allied power supply
Radeon 9700 pro
Plextor CDROM 40/12/40

Ok. So I leave my processor locked. I can EASILY move the FSB up to 155 without even upping the voltage. Rock solid. Now, here's the part I don't get. If I up the FSB to 166 (processor now at 2490 mghz), my computer posts just fine, goes through the raid setup fine...... but dies on boot into windows.

Now this doesn't make sense to me. If the processor and ram are fine at 155, and post just fine at 166, but it dies going into windows, what's going on with the hard drive? At 166 FSB, it seems with the additional divider, the pci bus is running at standard speed. Why would the hard drive choke? Am I missing something?

Let me know guys. Seems I've got a VERY stable processor (with air cooling). I'd like to know what you think is holding me back, cause it's driving me nuts.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

add more vcore
it hsouldnt be the pci (hd ) crappig out cuz theres a 1/5 divider implemented keeping the pci in spec

probably more vcore is just the issue

 

[AnAndAustin]

Just because you POPST doesn't mean it's stable enough for usage, 2.49ghz may be pushing it too far. TbredB are all UNLOCKED by default so do try a lower multiplier to get the 166/333FSB, you may have a prob with 5bit FID which can easily be overcome by crossing the last L3 (IIRC can verify) with a U (avoids the laser cut) of defogger repair type ink.

 

[Pulsar]

Here's a bit more information. I booted at 157 and fried the hard drive. Replaced the hard drive with an identical one. I can post in at frequencies up to 174 FSB with no hard drive. I KNOW these chips and motherboard combinations can do this and then some. 3 of the 4 reviews of this combo all were able to overclock to 170+ FSB with just air cooling and no multiplier adjustments.

Tonight I'll change harddrives to an old 6 gigger that I don't care about and see if I can boot at 157+. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

What type of bus does the raid use - does it run at the same speed as the standard IDE ports?

Do you really think it's the processor, or something else?

I can boot at 155 with no voltage increase at all on the cpu or ddr and run every benchmark I want. I'm scared, however, at increasing past that because at 157 I fried my last hard drive. Jumping to 166 allows me to get the pci, agp busses back to normal speed with the higher divider (it's an auto-divider, I can't underclock my pci agp bus =/).

Am I talking crazy talk here?

 

[Pulsar]

I wanted to add that I have already run the ram at 333 on this board by running it asynchronusly, so I know it isn't the ram.

Processor, or something else that I'm missing.