Weird issue with USB Wireless adapter and Overclocking

[Agentbolt]

Unless I manually set my PCI-E frequency to 120 MHZ, the link width on my motherboard goes from 16X to 1X, killing my video card's performance. So it's been running fine like that (locked to 120MHZ) with my OCed setup (368X9). I've stress tested with Orthos and everything, the OC is solid.

Today I got a USB wireless internet adapter and plugged it in, and installed the drivers. When I restarted my computer, though, the Vista loading screen froze pretty much the second it appeared. Oddly enough, I still heard the booting up sounds. Figuring it was a driver issue (NVidia drivers didn't like the Wireless adapter drivers) I uninstalled the video drivers. No dice, still couldn't load. I tried moving the USB adapter to the front USB ports, and that didn't change anything.

So then I reset my Mobo to optimized defaults, and the computer loaded fine. However, now I've lost my OC. Wondering what the issue was, I went back into the BIOS, locked the PCI-E frequency to 100 instead of 120, and restarted. Booted up fine overclocked back to 3.3 GHZ, but now my link width is back down to 1X.

So what the heck? What does my PCI-E frequency have to do with my stupid USB ports? That definitely appears to be the issue here. I'm desperate, any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Agentbolt]

Never mind, got it. Setting the PCI-E frequency to 105 fixes the link width AND allows the computer to boot. Thanks anyway.

If someone want to educate me as to what PCI Express frequency has to do with USB, however, that'd be cool. I'm curious.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Agentbolt
Never mind, got it. Setting the PCI-E frequency to 105 fixes the link width AND allows the computer to boot. Thanks anyway.

If someone want to educate me as to what PCI Express frequency has to do with USB, however, that'd be cool. I'm curious.

Seconded. It's a strange beast indeed and I recall reading FAQs on how to overclock Conroe a few months back and every so often they'd mention USB peripherals messing with it. It's strange and confusing and surely someone knows why...