Gigabyte DS3 o/c'ing problems - post HERE !!!

[The_Hardstylez]

Thanks Crazyjohn, it works fine now

[rzrsk8]

Ok, I guess I'm adding myself to this list...in a strange way.

My setup:
E6300 (OEM from TD, Scythe Mine) and OCZ EL Gold 2x1 GB 5-5-5-12 2.0 volts in slots 1 and 3, ATI X1800XT, and PCI SB X-Fi Platinum (only PCI card).

My story:

Ok, here goes. When I first got the baord all set up, I ahd a hell of a time booting because of the ram being severely undervolted. Eventually I was stable enough to boot into BIOS using just a single stick of ram and disconnecting everything else but my processor and video card. Upped the ram by .2 volts, added everything else, and installed Windows using the F1 bios. Upgraded to the F3 BIOS (in F1, my CPU was reported in BIOS at 7x66 MHz...F3 fixed this). First tried OCing to 300 MHz FSB, booted no problem and was easily Prime stable. Bumped this to 320, ran dual SP2004 and got an error in one core after about 3 hours. Kind of dissappointed, I decided to run prime again, and this time was stable overnight. Figured something jsut got messed up, so I went back into BIOS, and booted at 400 MHz FSB (1:1 FSB:RAM) and was prime stable for 3 hours before I stopped it.

It wasn't until the next day that I decided to try gaming at these speeds. First time I loaded up CS:S, the computer locked up as soon as it was finished loading the level and getting me in-game. Strange, considering it went 3+ hours dual Prime. So I try Half-Life 2 (same engine, I know), and I get an error loading the game from Steam (don't remember the exact error). None of this happens at stock speeds when I reboot.

So, I decided to see if a little extra voltage would fix the problem. Back to BIOS, I upped the CPU voltage to the next setting (1.375 volts I believe), F10 to save it and exit. Posts fine, but now when I get to the Windows loading screen, it locks up after about 3 cycles of the little blue bar. Strange indeed. It does this consistently, about 5 times. I decided that it seemed to be something related to the HD since it didn't happen until Windows was loading, so I shut down and change my SATA drives from the orange (ICH8-controlled) ports 0 and 1 to Gigabyte's own controller (GSATA0 and GSATA1). Windows now loads without any hitch (but back at stock Vcore as I changed that after the first lockup).

So, back to BIOS to try the overclock. Set the FSB to 400, RAM still at 800, F10 and bam. PC won't even post. The videocard fan and CPU fan are running full-bore, but no video at all. The HD activity light almost makes it look like stuff isloading regularly, but no video and the full-bore fan (normally quiet). Shut down, pull the power cord and wait a few minutes, start up and the clock is reset to 1.86 Ghz and everything runs fine.

How strange is this? I've tried disabling bunches of different thigns but I'm getting tired of it. Updated BIOS to F4C to no avail. My temps with Prime at 2.8 Ghz were low - 32 C idle, 48 C full load.

Any ideas?