Hello, I have just recently installed water cooling, and have been intrigued by Overclocking for quite some time. Since i have installed my water cooling system (thermaltake's Big water) Temps have been hitting 28"C to 45"C While OC'd from 2.4ghz to 3.1ghz, and Since after a while my computer has been freezing (hanging) when im in the middle of the game.. I have been diagnosing the problem to figure it out, I think its the power supply. But it could also be my Processor not being stable.. My question to you is.. if i have OC'd my Processor from 2.4 Ghz to 3.1Ghz with asus Overclocking in bios shouldnt it also be kept at adequate VCore? right now its under no load and has not frozen The Stats at which the processor are at are... Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz (northwood) OC'd to 3.1 w/1.664 - 1.68 Vcore is this enough Vcore? i dont really know enough about VCore or Ocing to actually know if its enough or too little or even if its stable... It has been running fine.. with no hanging.. but now it has and im curious to find the problem I would like to check the stablity and also maybe a Vcore explantion if anyone is willing to explain it to me. Thanks a bunch! Asus p4p800 SE motherboard Radeon 9800 pro 128mb Pentium 4 2.4c GHz Northwood OC'd to 3.1 Thermaltake's water cooling "Bigwater" Temps Cpu (no load) 28-30*C Motherboard (no load) 35*C Cpu (under load) 30-40 Motherboard (under load) 40+ The only way to get it right is to get it wrong.. the only way to not make a mistake on your computer is to ask :

You're apparently running ASYNC? CPU at one bus speed (roughly 258MHz) & RAM at another (probably 200MHz)? If so, your RAM is bottlenecking your system. For best performance, the CPU:RAM ratio should be 1:1...but if you do that, you'd have to lower the FSB because your PC3200 (DDR400) RAM isn't gonna be able to handle 258MHz. ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

Well that sounds bad.. What is ASYNC? and how do i set it to 1:1 Ratio? and do you have an reference you could give to me based on ram and cpu ratio's and FSB and the Rams Mhz? thanks again! The only way to get it right is to get it wrong.. the only way to not make a mistake on your computer is to ask :

disregard the What is a ASYNC question but i would still appreciate a reference so i can learn more about this Ram : CPU The only way to get it right is to get it wrong.. the only way to not make a mistake on your computer is to ask :

You say it might be a power supply problem, but you don't mention what PSU it is. The asus p4p800 is really good for overclocking. Depending on who you ask, vcore may or may not be good...alot of people don't want to go over 1.6...but as long as you don't pass 1.7, you should be fine. The maximum performance is obtained when you run the cpu:ram in a 1:1 ratio. With AMD CPU's, you really should run in a 1:1 ratio. With Intel CPU's, it's better to run asynchronous to get the highest fsb possible. Why is this? It's because the performance hit is less on an intel than it is on an AMD. Actually, the set-up should be fine, and the ram dividers should be used so you can find the highest possible fsb that your cpu can support. That way, you can find out how fast your new ram would have to be so that you can run 1:1. The stability problem isn't due to the cpu:ram ratio. The temps are fine, so it's probably not that. It could be that your cpu can't handle that much (in a batch of 10 cpu's, 6 will be average, 2 will be bad overclockers, and 2 will be great overclockers). Thus, you might have a bad overclocker. There are cpu databases where you can type in your cpu's identifier, and find out where and when it was made (ie: it's batch)...and to see what sort of overclocks other people are getting. PSU problem may also cause stability problems. For example, it might not provide clean voltages. Are you prime stable? Can you run stress tests without crashing? Run benchmarks to completion? It's possible to have an overclocked computer boot up and run programs fine, but still be unstable. You won't know it's unstable until it encounters something and crashes

"The stability problem isn't due to the cpu:ram ratio" I didn't mention the ratio because I thought it had anything to do with stability, I just didn't think there was much point in having the CPU's bandwidth at 8256MB/sec if the RAM's throughput (assuming dual channel mode) is only at 6400MB/sec. Backing off on the FSB or increasing the CPU voltage should cure the stability issue ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1280MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1