Overclocking a 2.4ghz Northwood

I'm on my first overclocking project (I am excited) and I'm short a little on know-how. Reading over faqs and guides on the subject I have a decent working knowledge of the goings-on between my processor, card slots, and ram. I'm running the Intel Northwood 2.4ghz 800mhz bus hyper-threading processor with a one-gig stick of PC-3200 DDR400 ram on a good asus motherboard.

I managed to get my box going at a little over 2.9 at stock voltage with my ram working at about 408mb bus speed, rock steady. No heat problems, but any higher than this (3.0ghz+, 416mhz memory bus or greater) and my memory has a coniption fit. It'll run under load for awhile, but inevitably (after about 15 minutes at 80-100% load) I'll get a program-fatal memory read error.

I'm posting because I'm not really certain what the problem is. I know my processor could get way over the frequency I'm operating it at now, but I'm really not certain what my fsb is. I know this processor sends data four times per cycle, and the frequency of the fsb is actually a multiple (the data transfers at a literal 200mhz) but how does the ram work? When my ram is at 416, is it trying to send more data over the motherboard's 800mhz bus (trying at 832mhz) and failing? Or could I possibly correct this by increasing my memory core voltage?

One more thing- the processor is the 2.4C, and I know for a fact it can go to over 3.2 ghz on stock voltage without breaking a sweat. So I'm pretty sure something about my ram is holding me back...

I know for a fact it

a) How do you know this?
b) Your dying after a few minutes of 100% load sounds like a heat issue.
c) Why bother?

A) I know because others have done it. Google.

b) It's not a heat issue, nothing is hotter than 52 degrees at full load

C) why bother overclocking a processor 900mhz?!

I know because others have done it.

Which shows you fundamentally misunderstand how CPUs are rated. Just because others have done it does not mean your particular CPU can.

why bother overclocking a processor 900mhz?!

It'll have a shorter lifetime, have less stability, and you'll probably see less than a 10% increase in real world performance. The main bottleneck on desktop systems now days (actually the past decade or more) is not the CPU.

Unless you're spending your time rendering, encoding, or something similar, you don't need to do this.

You are a fucking douchebag idiot. I don't want your fucking opinion, I KNOW the problems I'm having are with memory. I don't want your fucking opinion on how effective my system will be. I know how much power I need out of my processor, and I'll be the judge of whether or not 10% is useful.

I *believe* my particular CPU can handle more than it is because under full load at 2.9ghz it doesn't even break a sweat. The reason I don't have memory problems at this frequency is because my FSB is not higher than my ram can handle. I wanted information about overclocking ram, but I guess I should know better than to ask you fucking /b/tard idiots

gb2/b/ you fucking troll

>>1
Ok there are a couple things you need to know about memory bottlecaps. You need to know if you ram is asycronous or synchronus. Your ram to pc clock ratio are crutal to your system. If you are 1:1 (sychronous) your ram will match whatever speed your processor is. Otherwize you will have to attempt to change the ratio of your PC clock to Ram clock. (I have no clue how to do this; I have an AMD and all AMD chipsets run sychronous.)
As for overvoting, it all depends on your temature on how much extra juice you can poor in the pipes. In addition Overvolting is not a fix all. You system will eventualy crash, it's just a matter of when. I have my 1.6ghz clocked to 1.9ghz with a +.7% overvot on processor and a +.2volt overvolt on my ram (this IS nessisary). My uptime is about 3 days. I was able to get my system up to 2ghz, but it's uptime at that point with a +3v and +10% overvots is about 20 minutes. Sorry I couldn't help you more with the ram issue.

I KNOW the problems I'm having are with memory.

Yeah, yeah. And what if it isn't? Waaaaaah!

>>7
hey thanks, you helped me out a bit. I was having some problems because my ram was running under the fsb and I had my motherboard set to synch mode. I changed it to asynch mode and I got a little closer to 3ghz stable, I'm now at 2.98 stable and my system's running a little better.

My ram just can't stand being overclocked, though. I can't get it stable over 408mhz. I guess it's time to give it up or get new ram.