Poor Board, PSU, or P4 chip?

[Nick63]

I have an Abit IS7, 2 x 512 Kingston 3500Hyperx ram, 9700 AIW pro, Creative Live 5.1, and a 2.6 800fsb p4. The power supply is a 350watt Aopen that came with the case. At default settings I cannot get past 210 fsb. Going to 5:4 does get me to 225, but going to 3:2 does not get me past 225fsb. Does this mean the ram is no good for above 210 at 1:1 and the chip maxed out at 225 or could the power supply or motherboard be the limitaion? I have various ram timings and voltages, but this is where I stand. I don't think the ram is the problem trying to go above 210 at 1:1 becuase that is below it's 430 rating. Anybody have some thoughts on what is the bottleneck? Also, I bought the P4 from an online vendor and before I opened the plastic container I noticed two big sets of thumb-fingerprints on the chip. Does this likely mean that it had been opened and tried by someone other than Intel and shipped back because it did not overclock well enough?

 

[Nick63]

Bump

 

[Lyfer]

If its a retail box, THERE SHOULD BE NO FINGER PRINTS AT ALL. What kind of cooling are you using? Stock?

 

[Nick63]

Yes, it is stock. I did put some thermal paste on it. Temps seem to run around 50c overclocked to 210 fsb 1:1 under load. The one thing that makes me suspect the board is that I cannot run any of the game accelerator settings without crashing at 200 fsb even with ram at 5:4 or 3:2. Relaxing the memory timings does not help either. Since I can get semi stable at 225 with 5:4 on auto it seems that the P4 chip is better than 210. Since ram is not the problem at 211 1:1 {because I tried 3:2 with relaxed timings} I tend to suspect the board or even power supply{I doubt it is the psu though}. But those fingerprints cast doubt on the p4. It could be the p4 and the board. I almost feel I got a board and p4 chip that was tried and sent back by a previous overclocker who was not happy. I am really starting to question this motherboard. Oh, I have tried every voltage adjustment combo too.