So I finally decided to overclock my computer. I ran all the tests to find out the limitations of my motherboard, CPU, and RAM. My motherboard, or FSB(HTT), can be topped at 305Mhz. However, when I went to find the CPU's limits, Prime95 threw an error at only 230Mhz!! I was very disappointed as I'm sure my system can handle much greater speeds: DFI Lan Party nF3 250Gb(1600mhz) AMD 64 3200+ @2.0Ghz Clawhammer Max Multiplier is 10 Max Voltage to CPU thru BIOS is 1.55 MGE Titanium Case with 7 system fans including a Zalman 7700 CPU cooler 1.5Gb Kingston HyperX Ram PC3200 timings(3-3-3-8) I feel I have a system that can do much much more. Please let me know if I should try a different approach to overclocking it, or my system is just limited by my processor. Any advice is much appreciated. "Sleep is for the weak." -ssjKakarot AMD64 3200+@2Ghz Clawhammer 2x512 PC3200/DDR400 RAM BFG GeForce 6800 OC AGP DFI LanPartyUT nF3 250Gb 1600Mhz Frontside Bus MGE Titanium Case With 6 LED 80-120mm Fans Antec 350W PS

I don't know man, check out your system temps. You should probably upgrade your PSU. If your temps are good then I would think your MOBO or CPU or both just won't have that kind of speed. Hope this helps.

The problem I see is the Clawhammer CPU. It's still 130nm technology while the new winchester and venice are 90nm technology. Because of that the clawhammer needs more power and gets hotter. If I guess right about those 1600MHz you have a socket754 system so there is not that much to upgrade at the cpu. But there are also some other reasons that will stop you from going higher: The most important is the PCI clock which should be 33,33MHz and never above 37,5MHz or you're very likely to run into problems. If your bios offers a PCI lock activate it at 33,33MHz and otherwise you need to choose the right divider. Another new factor at OCing an Athlon64 is the HTT clock. It's based on the FSB and the HT multiplier. It's build to run at 800Mhz with socket754 (1000MHz with socket939) and can work in both directions at the same time so sometimes the given speed is doubled in the given data. This HTT clock is only able to handle a light OC so if your raise the FSB you need to lower the HT to 3x or maybe even 2x to stay as close to the 800 (1000) MHz as possible. The third important factor is your Ram. It's meant to run at 400MHz with a FSB of 200MHz because it's double data rate (DDR) Ram. This means at 230MHz FSB you Ram will be clocked at 460MHz which might be a bit too much for it. With lower timings and a little bit more Ram voltage you might be able to get a bit more out of it but for testing the other parts I suggest to lower the Ram speed manually to 333MHz or 266MHz base speed. Even then the Ram is OCed at the same percentage as the FSB. If everything else works at a higher speed you can try how far you can go with the Ram! As an example I can OC my 3000+ Winchester from 1800MHz to 2700MHz with a Ram speed setting of 266MHz. Together with the 50% OC this adds 133MHz Ram speed so my Ram will be back at ~400MHz! You also need to know that a OCed CPU will need more power at a certain speed so it can still switch in time. But only raise the VCore one small step in time and check if the CPU gets more stable. Also keep a very close eye on the temperature because the more voltage the hotter it gets. Important is the heat at full use and not at idle. Use a monitoring software to check that all the time! I hope that helps but keep in mind this is on you own risk only. And you loose warranty but that's already gone with OCing it to 230MHz!

Uppssss.... Forgot something important about the Ram: If you lower the Ram base speed you also need to enter the CL numbers manually. Otherwise the board will automatically detect lower CL settings for the lower speed so they will not work in the OCed speed!

i have a 3200 venice with Asus a8v sli and i cant even get it to 2.2, so unstable. can u give me a hint plz. i have kingston hyperx 2-6-3-2 thank you AMD 3200 venice kingston hyperX 2-6-3-2 EVGA 6800gt

I previously wrote that I use a Clawhammer AMD64 3200+ and have a foxconn K8S....mobo (i am at work and not at my computer!). I simply oc'd the fsb to 220 (option to go to 232MHz) and cpu runs at a little over 2.4 GHz. (and v. stable, not hot) Again I have a question. Is HT always on?? sound silly but sisandra or other utility indicated no HT? Can someone enlighten me.??