Greetings, This is my first time posting to this board, but I've been reading it for the last 2 hours and seen some great responses, so maybe someone here can tell me if im going to fry my cpu LOL Im using an Asus A7V8X mobo with the latest (non beta) bios in it, and the athlon 2200+ CPU. It's got 2 extra cooling fans in the case, with a geforce 4 fx 5200 with 128ram on it. Right now, Its showing it to be a 2800+ and running at almost exactly 2Ghz. All I did was change the bus speed to 166 instead of 133, and multiplier down from 13.5 to 12. It seems to be running fine and fast, but I did this same thing just about a week ago, and the motherboard just died......the cpu was fine, (but i convinced them to swap me for a new one anyway). It worked great then for about a day too....then just went *uggghhh* right now, under a fairly heavy load, its running at 95 degrees F(35 C) and seems to be doing fine. So, my main question: Am I pushing it too hard? is something gonna die from the higher bus speeds soon (again)......or did i just get a bad mobo last time? Also, what would be a critical temperature for this CPU...I cant seem to find it anywhere on AMD's site..... Any advice, info, or coments would be much appreciated!!

Just keep an eye on your board temps. Try extra cooling around the northbridge (main chipset next to cpu). The via type dont like being pushed too high. You have a great cpu there, running at 35c overclocked & under heavy load, hang on to it! Anywhere between 40c and 50c is considered normal temps for your cpu.

thanks for the info! i'll mount an old 486 fan on the northbridge for some extra help...thats probably what happened to the first board. ;) (this mobo has a huge heatsink built onto the northbridge anyway)

Also, is your RAM no-name brand? Coz that has a rather large impact on your overclockability, I know, I went for nice cheap 512 stick, and it turns that it is the weakest link in my box with regards to O/Cing :(

Well, Im not sure of the name, but i bought premium DDR 333 ram.... this motherboard also has specific settings for the ram speed in the bios. While overclocked like this, the only option is 333. When not O/c'd it has the option to run at 266 (which was the minimum I needed for this board) and also 333, 400, and 'Auto' It almost makes me wish I'd bought faster ram, but the way I figure it, the 333DDR ram should be perfect since the ram runs at twice the bus speed. at 133 system bus(default), the ram defaults to 266....but overclocked to 166 system bus, that means the ram should not be an issue since its designed to run at 333.... Right?

Whats the best ram company for ddr 400?