I realyl want to blame your ram for most of your issues. This may not seem to make such sense, but seeing so many issue with Micron IC's(D9's), it's hard to not place blame there. Some of my Crucial kits won't boot any more @ default(400mhz 5-5-5-15 1.8v)...actually only one does. The others cause C1 issues. C1 i beleive is memory initialization, so either memcontroller or mem is at fault under these circumstances. However, you should be able to get a non-stable boot long before C1 occurs...so you adjusted too many options at once, IMHO, to get a C1.

I set my ram not based on speeds, but based on what timings give me a certain amt of bandwidth. This is key...as 3400mb/sec @ CAS4 or 3400mb/sec @ CAS5 are virtually the same thing to the memory IC...but at the same time, different for the memory controller. With this in mind, I have very tangible goals when tweaking, as well as limits.


In regards to your chipset, i cannot say it sucks without playing with it myself. Sometimes hotter chips scale farther, sometimes not. depends on whether the heat is leakage related, or current related. Leakage on hot chip generally means cooling will bring it in line, but if the current is making chip hot, then not much can help it. this is the same for pretty much all silicon...chips with high leakage can handle higher current. current is not Volts, BTW, but amperage. Pretty much like "b" conroe's...pretty sure the only difference is the IC's on bottom of chip pcb, that allow more current to the chip...easily explains why "b" chips tend to go farther...they have more current available. Also explains the heat of those chips too.