Hi, i own a system as follows: amd2400, corsair 512mb ddr333, geforce 3 ti200, GIgabyte Ga-7vrxp My mobo was one of the first with kt333 and has a feature in bios alowing changes of fsb upto 400 (bus speed 200) and recieved good reviews and many awards. However, i find the system extremely unstable at anything above a bus speed of 139. i read that this was due to the inability of the mobo to lock the AGP/PCI frequencies which change when the bus speed is increased greater than 139. now im wondering what i should/could do? i am open to suggestions - and i have mentioned in a previous thread that i have been able to clock my pc to bus speed of 146 which seemed pretty stable but this was only by lowering the speeds of my graphics card chip and memory which i dont really want to do either. A lot of the people who have helped me seem to be extremely clued up in the pc world (far more so than myself) and i was wondering what you guys would advise me to do next? thank you guys - sorry for taking up so much of your time

Did you move your harddrvies to the promise controler(raid), then you wont have to worry about currupt files.

FAO: HOtSHot i dint change to promise as you instructed as i didnt think my files would get corrupted - and thankfully they didnt. Like i said i have finally found the reason i cant get past 139 without modifying my graphics card settings is due to any bus speed greater than 139 results in the agp frquency also changing... im not sure wot to do now - any ideas??? i have heard there are versions of bios available which have been modified by very experienced pc modders to lock agp/pci settings..any advice on this?? i think its too risky but whats your input? cheers for suggestions so far

I realize you've been struggling with this for days now & I really wish someone could come up with a solution for you...you (we) must be missing something. Unfortunately, I kinda doubt that the PCI/AGP speed is an issue at 139mhz FSB. Let me try a quick explanation as to why... You probably know that the PCI bus is supposed to run at 33mhz & the AGP at 66mhz. Those speeds are a ratio of the FSB. At 100mhz FSB, the PCI is 1/3 FSB (100/3 = 33.33). At 133mhz, the PCI is 1/4 FSB, at 166mhz it's 1/5 FSB, & at 200mhz, it's 1/6 FSB. Generally, the PCI divider changes automatically in relation the the "base" FSB setting. However, some boards BIOS allow the option of changing this divider manually, which can help you keep the PCI bus within a reasonable speed when overclocking...other boards allow you to lock the PCI/AGP at their defaults. It's been determined that most PCI cards & hard drives can handle up to about 37-38mhz...above that speed is when you usually run into problems and/or risk data corruption. Since your base FSB is 133mhz, your PCI divider would be 4...so at 139mhz FSB, your PCI bus would be running at 34.75mhz (139/4). At this speed, I doubt the "overclocked" PCI bus is the cause of your problem.

hey Jam thanks so much really, much appreciated - ok, info from you has been absolutely fab...however i think u wil find this interesting... When i state i cant get past 139fsb this is with my graphics card overclocked... (graphics cpu@230Mhz and memory at 500MHz) therefore if i want to increase further i have to restore my grpahics card speed back to the original factory settings. Now if i resotre my graphics card back to its factory setting (graphics CPU@170MHz and memory at 500MHz) then in this instance i can get up to 145/6 with it running reasonably stable. Now anything beyond 145/146 (for example 147) i reckon takes my graphics card to 37+ Mhz as it does my hard drive tv card and 5.1 sound card....therefore one of them seems to not like it... Also, if i do increase past 139 my system wont reboot properly - i have to do a complete powerdown (switch of my pc at the mains) and then reboot - i believe this is due to either my Hard drive or my graphcis card...as i can hear my system trying to boot (hd spinning but no video output is recieved) To be honest i have read loadsa reviews and problems faced with my MOBO - I was one of the first 50 to recieve this mobo, and the first 200 all had a manufacuters fault with the AGP voltage connection and therefore had t be reworked/repaired/modified. I also went on to receive compensation as a result of this also. This mobo was meant to be revolutionary but it turned out to be quite a pigs ear to be honest - never really lived upto my expectations. I have contacted Gigabyte with regards to the problem of not being able to lock the agp and will wait to see wot they say... But, again Jam reallly - i cant thankyou enough for your help and i have learnt a lot too (invaluable) - If you have any suggestions of which new MOBO's r good for overclocking please let me know asap about them i will have a look at them for sure. Cheers :)

FAO: Jam Also, if my motherboard worked with the frequency as u mentioned above - then my pc should boot at 166fsb (as 166/5 = 33.2) - but it doesnt it tries to boot up twice but then just resotres fail safe settings and boots up - One other thing - could it be my sound card as whenever i set the FSB too high and it fails to boot, it doesnt recognise my sound card anymore - and i have to take it out of the PCI slot and put it back in - ether way im sure its either one of my PCI cards or the AGP card :(

Have you ever tried running with a minimal hardware configuration, then experimenting with the FSB? If you have a device that's holding you back, you may be able to figure which one it is thru "reverse process of elimation". Temporarily remove your PCI cards (modem, sound, etc), disconnect all IDE devices, & the floppy...just leave your graphics card, CPU, RAM, & necessary cooling fans connected. I would suggest manually setting your multiplier to something somewhat low...say 10.0x...but I know you said when you change the multipler, it won't let you boot, so it's probably best left at the default setting at 1st. Actually, you're not looking to overclock just yet, you just wanna troubleshoot your FSB problem. Bootup, go directly into the BIOS & try clocking the FSB up to your trouble area...147, 148, 149....save, reboot & see what happens. If it boots up & doesn't kick you back to failsafe settings, it would indicate that something you disconnected has been causing your grief. Just for the hell of it, you might wanna try a manual multiplier setting (10.0x) & see what happens...if it boots up, try your FSB at 166mhz...reboot again. Still holding strong? Start connecting devices one or two at a time, bootup, & see if that FSB setting holds up. If you have a flakey device, you should eventually find the culprit. If it kicks back to failsafe the 1st time you try it at 147, 148, 149mhz, then it's either a board or RAM problem...I highly doubt it's the CPU...I suppose the PSU is a possibility as well. If nothing seems to help, it probably wouldn't hurt to reflash the BIOS...even if you use the same version.