help overclocking Athlon 64 x2 5600+ - BSOD past 205MHz

[TechBuilder]

I'm a newbie to overclocking, but not a newbie to systems or system building. im just trying to broaden my horizons and get more performance for less money... plus learn some tricks along the way

That being said, I can't overclock my Athlon 64 5600+ 2.8Ghz past 205MHz in bios. (stock is 200MHz). I get a blue screen and a memory dump, and occasionally system will stop displaying all together, and ill have to reset the cmos from the pins on the mobo. My system specs are below.

AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+ 2.8GHz
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard (non-wifi)
8GB DDR2 800MHz (running at 533MHz due to the timings being different)
-Patriot Extreme(I think) 800MHz 4-4-4-12 2.2V
-Patriot G-Series 800MHz 5-5-5-12 1.9V
500GB Western Digital Caviar Black 7200RPM SATA hard drive
-A specific Unix-Based operating system tied to "JOBSian hardware.. not sure if i can mention it here so I wont". FOR EXPERIMENTAL PURPOSES ONLY TO LEARN THE OS BEFORE FORKING OUT COUPLE GRAND.
250GB Western Digital Caviar Blue 7200RPM SATA hard drive
-Windows 7 home 64bit
XFX Geforce GT240 1GB DDR5
Apevia "Beast Power" 650W power supply. (not the greatest, I know, but I upgraded the fans from the cruddy stock fans and it stays COOL.)

I understand you're not supposed to mix and match memory, but the extra 4GB came free with the motherboard when my old Abit took a dump and i upgraded. new M2N-SLI deluxe plus 4GB of ram for 30 bucks? heck yes!
overclocking doesnt work whether I have 4GB (2x2GB) or 8GB (4x2GB). same results.

This system idles at 34-38C, depending on room temperature. under load in prime95, it has never once gotten above 48C (load). So I believe I have some room to overclock a bit. Any suggestions would make my day. thanks everyone.
-Nick

[Gold Runner]

all of http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=297148 applies to your computer, same theory different chipset.

Second option, Lower NB/HT speeds. x10 or 2000mhz to x8 or 1600. The FSB at 240 will bring NB/HT speeds back to stock (2000mhz). That gives you a 200-400mhz headroom again. Simple enough right? I will add that some Cpu's prefer different speeds with the NB and HT. You'll have to play around to find how to get your maximum processor over clock.

i'm guessing thats your problem, drop your multiplier. But it could be:
ram - not stable
cpu - not stable
psu - never heard of it so i'm guessing its not the greatest and is failing under that miniscule load increase

To test ram, underclock cpu by lowering fsb, set ram ratio so its going how fast you want it to go, run memtest etc.

To test northbridge, lower the cpu multiplier, lower the ram ratio so the ram is going slower, increase fsb, see what happens

To test cpu, lower ram ratio (ram goes slower), lower NB x HTT multi, increase fsb. Increase cpu voltage to make cpu stable if unstable.

edit: I use fsb + htt interchangeably, fsb was the original thing, but since the advent of htt, there is no fsb anymore, and actually htt should be reference clock

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