A7N8X-E Deluxe Custom Air Cooled Rig

[Islanman]

Here is the low down... Mainboard A7N8X-E Deluxe. Unlocked AMD XP2400+ Throughbred 133MHz FSB @168MHz*14 Multiplyer and 1.775V (hey the chip is cheap) (2x256) Dual Channel DDR405MHz Custom settings @ CAS2.5 T(RP)2-T(RCD)2-T(RAS)11 using latest nVSystemUtility. SiSoft Sandra 2004 Performance Rating PR3415 with Dhrystone ALU 8864MIPS (a hairs breath away from Opteron148 Performance). Seti@home command client version3.03 average proccessing rate 2.12Hrs/wu. over 1mth. period @ 472.88MegaFLOPs/sec. CPU temp at full load 57C. room temp 24C system 28C.....Here is the rub...If I go pass 2355MHz system hangs at windows icon launch (yes unstable). What settings or hardware should I try for that magic 2400MHz and beyond peformance. Iwould like to stick to custom air cooled rigs

[scottluebke2003]

Set your RAM timings to factory speeds. OCing the CPU and tweaking the RAM can cause crashes. Try that.
Your temps are just fine, that's not the problem.

[Islanman]

After checking many reviews on a variety of Overclockers sites and my own benchmarking results to duplicate what I have read. It is true that a memory timing on standard PC3200 (DDR400) Cas 3.0 T(RP)3-T(RCD)3-T(RAS)8 when adjusted to a T(RAS) of between 9 to 11 yields improved results. A surprisingly good performance improvement is to be had with aggressive timings of 400MHz CAS 2.0 T2-T2-T(RAS)10 or 11 on Dual DDR400 and single channel (remember to bump the voltage up from 2.6V to 2.7V)....DATA, Video and compression utilities saw improved results and times...This adjustment is better than simply raising the DDR400 to Overclock DDR466MHZ with the default bios CAS3.0 T4-T4-T(RAS)13 timings on the ASUS A7N8X-E V2 with Beta Bios 1010.....I have locked AGP @ 66MHz to prevent the 128MB 5200 Ultra and PCI devices becoming a boot preventing factor.