Say your overclocking the CPU and you can't go further. How do you know if its the RAM or the CPU?
You drop the mutiplier of your CPU.
In some examples its not the CPU borking because of maximum processor frquency but instead a mystery silicon condition known as an *FSB Wall*
I'm not an expert of these FSB walls although I'm starting to think my old school E6300 has an FSB wall of around 487MHz.
I again unsure as to the way an FSB wall presents itself, whether it's a case that the CPU can't boot up (i.e No post) beyond a certain speed or the fact it just can't run stable beyond a certain FSB?
FSB wall aside and as already mentioned by dropping the multiplier on your chip it takes the pressure off the cpu but still keeps the memory and chipset working hard.
I suspect the first bOObOO most nOOby overclockers run into is having their memory set async and running faster than the FSB, so as they increase the FSB the poor memory is suddenly running heaps faster than it should be.
Back a few years ago we were able to set the memory to run on a downwards divider which was useful when starting out, you could drop the multiplier on the chip, drop the multiplier on the memory and start raising the FSB, pretty much the first problem you would run into was the chipset carping out. Once you knew your chipset limitations you could then set the memory back to sync 1:1 and start raising the FSB again, if you had managed to get your chipset running at 300MHz but then the computer started crashing once you hit 270MHz with your synced memory it was pretty obvious what the problem was.
Once you knew how the chipset ran and how the memory ran you could finally set the chips multi back to default and start out again!
I think its still possible to adjust memory downwards on nVidia chipsets but not on INTEL chipsets for the past few years (dunno why INTEL dropped that?).
Lastly the path to a good overclock is always hardest for a nOOber or someone using new components as your not sure what each bit can do.
Most people who been clocking a platform for a while normally have certain sticks of ram that can run at XYZ speed and a sweet chip that is known good at a certain XYZ MHz.
It's perfectly doable from scratch but it requires a methodical approach and lots and lots of patience, good luck!
