Hi there guys

Could anyone plz advice me on wot to do....

I have the Asus P5B motherboard running 1x512mb DDR2 800 & 1x256 DDR533.I have a thermaltake 430watt psu & a geforce 7600GT card.
Currently Im overclocking my cpu @ 2.5gigs and it seems fairly stable with the stock heatsink & fan

but almost all articles & reviews that I'v read - they all seem to overclock it to around the 3.0gig mark!! unfortantely with me tho when I hit 2.81gig with FSB @ 400 my comp restarts itself when I get to the windows start-up logo.

any advice on wot u think i could try??also im wanting to get a new heatsink & fan & advice on which 1 i shud go for would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!!!!

Good chance it is your ram that is holding you back. You are running two different speeds of ram. Try with just one stick and see if you can crank things up a bit as a test.

430 watts seems a bit low for that system, especially the vid. card.

^ i agree, what its brand anyway????

Alex~

It'll depend on how much hardware you have hooked up, but 430w should be plenty if all you have connected is what is listed above.

But the problem is thermaltake. Their power supplies tend to be of low quality, and very skimpy on the +12v rail. Probably 15a-18amps or so which to put in technical terms, sucks.

getting better

well i'v tried running my pc with just the 1 - 512DDR800
and now i'm running my pc @ 2.87 with FSB @ 410.So thats very cool.
And thanks for the tip DonNagual.Shud i b happy with this? Or do u think I can get more out of my cpu?

With regard to the power supply Im running the Thermaltake Silent PurePower 430watt unit.

http://www.thermaltake.com/purepower/w005152/w005152atx12v.htm

the above link has all the specs of my psu.let me know wot u guys think of this psu.

another thing im noticing is every once in a while my comp will freeze but very seldom tho - dunno if i shud be worried or not?? or if my cpu is overheating?? it normally freezes while playing a game. when i enter the bios to check up on my cpu temps it normally is @ 52 degrees. Dunno if that is too high or not??

thanks alot guys!!!!

If 52c is your idle temps, then yes, you are getting too hot. Look into some 3rd party cooling solutions, for example Zalman.

As yous system is not completely turning off, and just freezing, temps may or may not be the cause. My guess would be simply that the overclock is unstable. It is never easy to troubleshoot instability in overclocking as it could be any number of things that are the cause.

Could be your high temps
Could be your ram. Download and run www.memtest.org and see if your ram is up to par. Ram plays a HUGE factor in overclocking. If your ram is cheap, then don't expect a great result.
Could be your powersupply. Thermaltake are not well liked in the enthusiast community. That particular one you have has decent amps on the 12v rails, so it is not complete trash, but you should probably test the voltage readings with a voltmeter if you have one. If not, take a look in the bios and see what it is reading for the +3.3v, the +5v and the +12v rails.

ok cool. I thought as much it was running hot.....

wot heatsink and fan do u think I shud get... unfortantely the Zalman stuff is very difficult to get in South Africa...well i havent really seen it around in any of the shops!!!!
any other suggestions???

wot sort of temp should it b at?
Sorry for all these questions but its my 1st time overclocking so just wanna make sure im doing everything right.

as for the readings I'l let you 2mrw as im currently @ work.
thanks again for da help!!

hi guys

heres the readings:

+3.3v = 3.31v
+5v = 5v
+12v = 6.91v

Holy crap, your +12V rail is WAY off.

Wots it suppose to be @?

And how can I rememdy the problem???

Well, software readings of voltages are never reliable, however they can be a good hint that you are having troubles.

As "newbie" above points out, your readings look pretty bad. You don't want to vary more than about 5% off from 12v or so, and your reading is way off the mark.

Unfortunately, if that reading is accurate (probably isn't far off) then you need to get yourself a new powersupply before that one you have in there now dies on you (and takes out some other hardware with it).

The good news is, good quality power supplies are not that expensive. Well, I don't know what prices are like in your area of the world. Take a look for power supplies from companies like Antec, Enermax, FSP etc. Make sure whatever you get has at least 24amps on the 12v rails.

This may or may not fix up your freezing problems. Good chance it will, but I am still thinking that your ram is not up to par. Have you tried running the ram test I like you to above?

ok thanks once again.

Please could you recommend me a good power supply?
With regard to the ram - i was looking at getting the 2 x 512 Transcend Ram DDR2800. It seems to be the best priced ram compaired to the Cosair & Kingston HyperX.
Is this a good buy?Or do u think I should spend the extra money on the cosair

heres the specs for the corsair.
Corsair® TwinX™ XMS™ Pro Matched Memory Pair - 2x 512MB Modules - DDR2-800 - 6-Layer, Heat Spreader, LED Indicator, CL 5-5-5-12
Retail Packaging, 6-Layer PCB, Heat Spreader, Factory Rated & Tested, Low Latency - Intel Approved

unfortnately I dont have the specs for the Transcend Ram modules but the have same clock speed : CL 5-5-5-12

Thanks a ton guys for all the input!!!!!!!

the corsair memory is great for overclocking with a 1:1 ratio, you'll have blazing fast bandwidth, and you won't be running the memory out of spec at 400x7, i've never messed with transcend, because i stick to name brand stuff for my overclockers. the good memory companies i've tried are corsair, patriot, g.skill (what i use to overclock my E6300,) and kingston. also, your heatsink is pretty much holding you back as well, i don't know what you can find in your country so give us a list of companies you have access to and i'll chime in with my 2 cents.