Hello!
Alright, so I have a Core 2 Duo E4300 and a p5b mobo.
I've read various tutorials how to overclock the CPU and have managed to overclock my C2D from 1.8GHz to 2.34GHz (raised the FSB from 200 to 260).
As far as I know (at least on this mobo), when I'm overclocking the CPU, the RAM overclocks aswell.
So at first I set my DRAM Frequency to DDR2-800. With this setting, I could raise my FSB to 240. When I tried to save my bios with FSB set to 260, my rig won't boot up, no post screen, the screen was just black. When I set it to Auto, my rig would boot without problems.
I thought that the cause for this would probably be the ram, as I think that it has exceeded beyond its 800mhz limit.
My memory: GEIL 2GB DDR2-800.
With DRAM Frequency set to auto, I could overclock my FSB to 260 without any problems. But I don't know whether it's safe for my memory to further overclock my CPU.

I'll post some screens of my bios and voltages:





Some info in Speedfan:



PCProbe:



And this is my RAM:

http://www.geilusa.com/products/showSpec/id/54

Specs:

As you can see, the working voltage is 1.9V-2.3V

One more question. Can I change my RAM Voltage to 2.1V in one step immediately, or should I go step by step until I reach that value? I don't want to fry my RAMs.

Is there anything that can be done about it, or do I need better RAM?
By the way, you can find my system specs in my profile.

-Rubberduck

While i dont have the P5B i do have the E4300. I use a Gigabyte P35ds3l. Corsair XMS-2 DDR2 675 CL 4-4-4-12 4 modules 2x152 and 2x1gb total 3gb ram. To get 3ghz all i did was leave all settings on auto except ram

I manually set it to the timing and set the Memory divider to 2 which is 1:1

I then disabled all the speedstep stuff. Went to FSB settings set it to 333mhz set PCI-E to 100mhz and booted up.

Flawless bootup has ran stable ever since on air i get 40c and 57c loaded with stock cooler and AS5

The P965 chipset on the P5B should allow the same and boot at 333mhz if not your E4300 is a lesser binned chip and 240 might be its FSB limit.

I agree with hacker.

It's probably your RAM and just set it like Hackers.
You could tweak from there if you want, but most most tweaks beyond that will not be super noticable.

I'm the type that usually OC's, but does not push it to the limit since you can't normally detect the last little bit outside of benchmarks.

So you mean that when my FSB is at 240, I should set my DRAM Frequency to 480?
I doubt the CPU has reached its FSB limit, the RAM is probably the limiting factor.
What if I raise the voltage on my RAM? Would this help me out?

Hello, Hacker91 is spot on, I have a P5B and an e4500 which i have at 2.94Ghz at the moment, Due to the FSB strap your ram must be set to the lowest divider, It will not be able to run at 1:1 until your FSB is at 266MHZ which you might not get with your e4300, When i had my FSB between 200-266 the ram was running between 333mhz and 342,5mhz at the lowest divider, Its strange but thats how the P5B works, You can oc it because you have headroom in your ram but you have to set it at the lowest divider manually in bios, If you have good cooling and have a stable vcore (mines at 1.35 in bios) then you could reach 266FSB and you will find your ram is at 1:1 @533mhz, this gives you headroom with the ram to give it some lower timings.

cheers

My RAM is already at 520mhz, I can't get any lower.
Is there anything else I can do?

What is your FSB frequency?

I use the 1066 pin mod for an fsb of 267. It works great. Fry's sells some copper tape for about $3, or you can use rear defroster solution from some auto parts stores. Mine is very stable at the default settings. My compaq board has no overclocking adjustments in the bios. There is also a post for the 1333 pin mod, but I don't know if it works with the e4300.

Okay, I changed the the RAM latencies to 5-5-5-15, just like the stock ones, set DRAM to 560 and set FSB to 280.
Went through Prime without errors, played a game for an hour and no crash. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Now my CPU is at 2.7GHz. Idle temp is 45C. Everything seems to be working fine. But I'm having problems with CS:Source.
After playing for around 15mins I get a BSOD with nv4disp.dll error.
So I updated my vidcard drivers and tried again but no luck. Also tried to install older drivers (the ones that worked flawlessly before the update) but it didn't fix the problem. This is happening only in this game, all the other games work fine. What could be the cause of the crash? Is it my vid card or is something wrong with my CPU?

It could be a heat issue, Have you set the PCI E freq to 100 manually?
Ty to re-install CSS as sometimes source engined games dont like overclocking.