I've tried a few things on my own; pumping the Ram voltage up a few notches before doing anything, running nTune twice to "optimize" my ram for me, but I really don't even know what is good with ram...
So without furthur ado, the two pages from CPUZ on my ram...any suggestions on if I should bother doing anything more, if it's worth it, or whatever?

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OK, here's what you need to do.

First, those RAM timings are wayyyy off. 2T command timing? That's killing performance. Set it to 1T.

Set your RAM voltage to 2.8v. If it has a heat spreader, it will handle it no problem (I run 2.85v on my OCZ 2GB pair).

What speed is your HTT/FSB at, and what divider are you running? You shouldn't have the RAM running below 200Mhz (DDR400) after setting the divider, since it's rated for that speed @ 2-3-2-5.\

Change the CAS timing to 2.

Change the RAS# Precharge to 2.
Change the Trc to something a little tighter, like 15 clocks. Tighten it if it's still stable.

Set Idle Timer clock to 128 for tuning purposes. Don't want something as trivial as this getting in the way. Set it back to 16-32 at the end.

Let me know more about what is going on here, and i'll continue the tweaking.

Summary:
- Set Command Timing to 1T
- RAM voltage to 2.8v
- Set new timings listed above
- Tell FSB/HTT speed and divider used

Oh, and do NOT use ntune or any other Windows-based tweaking tools for long-term overclocking usage. The BIOS is the only way.

Alright, I did the best I did. I couldn't find Idle Timer Clock in my BIOS, any other names it may go by?
I found out what happens when you overkill your ram clocks, I thought I killed my windows install, just needed to be a little less aggressive with my clocking...I'll try and find some shots of my BIOS Ram screens so you can be more helpful... 'ere we go!

Alright, just take that picture and replace those numbers with:
266
2
5
3
2
16
21
6
2
1

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I suggest you start from scratch!

Looking at the CPUZ link, you are running 285FSB to the CPU with a 9X Multiplier... so that means you are running a ram divider. The other pic showed you running 183MHZ, so I am not quite sure what your true ram speed will be.

Start by writing down your current stable settings and then reset everything back to defaults.

Make all necesary changes in boot order, temp monitoring, etc. so that it boots up.

Without using a ram divider, see how far you can get the FSB with stock timings.

You can then also try to max out FSB with loose timngs (3-4-4-8) and then again with tight timings (2-2-2-5)

Idealy, you should get the best performance on NF-4 TRAS of 7 according to Anandtech, so realy 2-2-2-7 is as tight as you should go.

To find the best combo fo CPU speed, FSB, and timings, I use 1MB of Super Pi. Almost every other bench score will go up if you can get your time's to be quicker on this test.

You can go to far with timings and still have it pass a 1MB Pi test, running a larger test like the 32MB, OCCT or Stress Prime will do a much better job for that, but it gets you in the ballpark quickly.

Each combo is unique, so it takes a bit of playing around to find out if you are better off with tight timings and a big ram divider, or looser with a small divider.

http://www.xtremesystems.com/pi/index.php

Heh, when you say Stock Timings, I'm assuming you mean the timings taken by default by the motherboard...in which case...prior to this thread, I never touched anything ram-wise other than giving it some more juice (2.8v i think) ? .....I'll update this post later...I'm really tired right now...

OK, yes, I mean what they default too, the info comes from a "SPD" (Serial Prescence Detect) chip located on your ram and hard coded with the info.

Stock timings can also refer to "Rated" timings that manufactures will put on the lable, wich are often a bit tighter than what they are pre programmed to run at.

They do this to ensure maximum compatability for all possible PC's they may end up in.

Most performance ram will run tighter timings than what SPD and rated timings, with extra voltage..it can be even more dramatic.

The first number is most important "CAS" 2 being the tightest, 2.5 middle of the road, and 3 being the loosest value.

They basically refer too how many CPU or "Clock" cycles must pass before it is able to complete an operation.

The rest of the numbers folowing CAS are still able to effect memory performance, just not quite as much.

CAS 2-2-2-5 is about as tight as they go, I have been able to run CAS 1.5-2-2-2 with WindBond "BH-5" based memory, but it realy did not perform any better.. and limited my FSB to well under 500 (250 in the BIOS)

I typically would use 2-2-2-7 and was able to reach speeds over 540FSB (270 Bios) and this was from chips rated for 333FSB (166 Bios) at 2-3-3-8!

Now I will also have to mention it required over 3.5v to do this, most memory would burn up over 3.2v.
In fact, one of the other most popular memory chips for performance known as "Samsung TCCD" will not survive long with much over 2.8v!

Typically TCCD will not run as tight timings, but can reach FSB speeds well over 300 in the Bios! (DDR 600, also known as PC4800)

DDR-2 use is on the rise with socket AM-2 out, they are running it at wicked speeds (667 and 800) but timings are so loose (Typically 4-4-4-15 or there abouts) that it somewhat offsets the gains.

There is better sticks finally coming to market with speeds over 1000 that is showing promise, but is also has a killer price to match.

I expect to see 2GB DDR-2 modules start to become more common in the very near future (Waiting on Windows Vista possibly) so having a system with 4~8GB will not be out of the ordinary this time next year!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820134083
(This is registered ram, I could not find any modules at this time without it)


Check out this link, it has a more detailed explination of ram timings.

http://www.houseofhelp.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=38136