What am I doing wrong? What should I get

[fellows]

Okay long story short...

I recently installed a Scythe Ninja Rev. B on my s939 x2 3800.

Basically I was thinking of upgrading my rig, but decided to hold off a bit longer because the whole system is running fine, and I'm short of cash.
I was going to use the Ninja on my Quad setup, but since that won't be for a few months I did not want it to go to waste.
To say the least, I was not that impressed as my temperatures only dropped by about 5-6 degrees Celsius.

More importantly I wanted to overclock my x2 3800 since I now have more headroom.

I have tried everything from software overclockers, to BIOS tinkering. For some reason I cannot even get a slight overclock from stock speeds.
My board is no slouch, Asus A8n-E, and my ram is decent as well, Patriot DDR DC PC3200 2gb.
I found quite a few guides from [H] and online, as to what timings to use, and have set the multiplier to x10, as well as the HTT to 4.

Every result is the same, either my bios will freeze after IDE detection, or the bios will state that CPU Speed is o/c'd but CPU-Z reports nothing,

So I'm now wondering what processor (Socket 939) would be a worth, price competitive upgrade. Or any help as to what I'm doing wrong regarding OC'ing


Thanks [H]'ers

Fellows

 

[rennyf77]

if you look around on the web for patriot memory reviews, you'll find that they are very resistant to overclocking, i've found that to be true, especially with their ddr1 kits. that being said, try paring back your memory clock to 333 and make sure the ram is receiving maximum allowable voltage.

 

[fellows]

Ohh Well that is sad news to hear, I thought these sticks were preety good.

I tried your suggestion, and have had some success, I was able to achieve 2.5ghz from the standard 2Ghz. Not to shabby but I had a few questions
So now that I've scaled my Ram back, its basically the same as having DDR 333 (PC 2700) Ram right.

I had to loosen up the timings as well, and correct me if I'm wrong but aren't tighter timings better. Also in the grand scheme of things Ram speed should be more important than specific timings, so have I cut off my leg to save my arm by OC'ing to 2.5Ghz, but sacrificing a drop in memory speed (400 -> 333)

The documentation of the ram recommended the following:

tCL - 2
tRCD - 3
tRP - 2
tRAS - 5

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/memory/pdp/patriot/index.htm

This review states :

PC3200 (400MHz) 2-2-2-5-1T 2.6-2.7v,

whereas I had to use the following:

PC3200 (333MHz) 2.5-3-3-7 2.6v [CPU-z reports 208.3MHz]

So I'm not sure where I stand, since I've achieved a higher CPU frequency, but it looks like my Ram performance took a significant hit.

Finally I'm completely stumped as to why my temperatures have not changed. At Idle it still reads just above 40 Celsius. I wonder why it becomes unstable at 2.6ghz when at 2.5ghz the temperature is the same as stock.

BTW - Thanks for the input renny