Strange Overclock issues

[Vanman]

Wondering if anyone else has had problems similar to mine, and what potential cause is. Here's my setup right now:

Mobo: Abit NF7-S
CPU : Mobile Athlon XP 2400 (No idea on stepping, got CPU bout 2 months ago from Newegg)
Ram: 1 x 512 Crucial Valueram
1 x 512 Kingston Value Ram
Vid : ATI 9600XT

When I try to overclock it via FSB it becomes real unstable on anything past 166, and even then in some applications (Far Cry in particular) I get random reboots or kicked to windows. After screwing around with it at various different settings, I've settled on overclock of 2128 GHz with FSB at stock 133 with a multiplier of 16. At that setting it runs stable with temp running around 45C. Any ideas why it would OC great just using multiplier but not with FSB changes? For the money I spent I'm still happy with it, was a huge upgrade from my old athlon XP 1400. But after reading many threads I feel like I'm missing out on the full potential of this combo. On a side note, another odd thing is that the CPU isn't recognized by the bios or from within windows except to say it's "Authentic AMD". Any feedback would be appreciated.

Dirk

 

[MegaWorks]

What's your RAM, is it PC2300, PC3000, PC3200 etc ?

Edit: Also is your NF7-S the ver.2 edition?

 

[trexpesto]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
What's your RAM, is it PC2300, PC3000, PC3200 etc ?

Edit: Also is your NF7-S the ver.2 edition?

Or the dreaded NF7-S2?

take out one stick for testing purposes, mismatch there

 

[maluckey]

Mismatched RAM is always a no-go for total stability. Sometimes it works, most of the times it doesn't. Just because they share the same speed rating, doesn't mean that they share the same chips, timings or voltage requirements.

 

[Vanman]

Motherboard is NF7-S Ver. 2, as for the ram both sticks are PC3200 and I didn't add the second stick (Kingston) until a couple of weeks ago. I'm thinking maybe I just got a bad CPU, best I was able to get with the single stick of ram to even boot to windows was 180 FSB. Anything past that and it would lock up on reboot and I'd have to reset the bios via jumper. If you think the ram might be an issue I could try it with the kingston and see if I have different results. But I've usually had better luck with crucial than kingston historically.

It's not a major deal, this rig is mostly a temporary set up until the prices on the athlon 64's & Mobo's come down a bit. I knew going into it that the socket A boards are a dead end, but the price was low enough that I couldn't resist. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Dirk

 

[trexpesto]

You have a good power supply?
Get the latest BIOS if you don't have it already, for sure.

 

[Vanman]

Power supply is an issue I didn't consider actually. It's an older 300 or 350 watt PS, not sure on brand as it came with the case. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to replace it regardless if that's the problem or not as it's at least 3+ years old.

Dirk