What next? Stuck at 2550 Mhz. Newbie attempt at overclock

[SteveBlack]

Ok so my first overclock has gone well thanks to my lurking around this place

My system is:

Athlon X2 3800+ (Manchester)
Asus A8N-E
Single stick of Corsair Value Ram 1 Ghz 3-3-3-8
Aopen housing with included 400W PSU (Claims 15A on +12V1 and 14A on +12V2, 385 W combined)
Stock HSF that came with 3800+ X2

Ok currently running at (About 1 hour of Prime 95 torture test, two instances on both cores) with following setup.

I reduced Memory speed to 333 Mhz
FSB 255 MHz
Multiplier X 10
2554 MHz
Vcore 1.4125 (CPU-Z Shows 1.424 V)
Temperature ~35 deg. C idle and 53-57 C during Prime95 torture test.
Memory now at 212.8 Mhz

I tried FSB of 260 with 1.425 Vcore, but it failed at stress test of Prime 95 after about 20 mins. So what next? Any other methods that will get me to 2.6 or 2.7 GHz? Or have I hit the maximum? I dont immediately plan to spend more money on new HSF or PSU or memory. Any suggestions as to how to get a bit more of the CPU?

Thanks

 

[Madwand1]

Have you run MemTest?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Have you set the HTT manually or Auto?

 

[n7]

Do it in steps...

Follow Zebo's guide, as it still works well for determining maxes.

Lower HT Link multi/LDT to 600/3x so it's outta the picture.
And certainly lower RAM divider to 266/133 so RAM's not the culprit.

Now attempt to raise her up slowly, & you could bump up vcore to ~1.5V safely if you want (keep an eye on temps though)>

 

[Shimmishim]

my bet it is one of two things.

1. your mem might be overclocked too high.
2. the heat being generated is causing prime to error out. usually if prime can run for a short time before an error shows up, it's usually heat related.

follow zebo's guide as n7 suggested. it should help you isolate your problem.

 

[JSFLY]

Bump your ram down another notch.
Also try 2T timings to see if that helps.

But tell ya what, if your getting 57 load with your current HSF, going up higher isnt gonna be pretty. Your PSU also needs an upgrade. Im surprised you can even get that far with such low-end equipment. I'd be happy and just take 2554.