Overclocking stability question

[covana]

I overclocked my fsb to 160 and changed my cpu multiplier to 6. I ran prime95 for 6 hours and sisoft sadra memory and cpu burn in test for 4 hour each. I personally though this would mean my computer was stable, but it wasn't. I ran 3dmark03 nature test on a 20 time loop, it didn't even run 4 times before my computer screen turned black and froze! Why would i pass every other test and not be able to run this one?

My setup:
Mobo: Asus A7N266-C
Ram: 256 Crucial pc2100 + 256 Kingston pc2100 = 512 Total pc2100
CPU: Amd AthlonXP 1700+ oc to 1.66 ghz
OS: Windows XP Pro SP1
CDRW: LiteOn 48x12x48 cdrw
DVDRW: OPTORITE DD0203 RT DVD+-RW DUAL
Audio Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Video Card: ATI Technologies Sapphire Radeon 9500 Non-Pro
Monitor: KDS 19" CRT VS-190IS
Harddisks: 20 gig 7400rpm WD Cavalier + 20 gig 7400 rpm Maxtor
Speakers: Cambridge SoundWorks Megaworks 550 THX

[Ryanoffski]

I'm not extremely experienced with this, but maybe its your graphics card. Try PCMark04 and see if it freezes.

[Bovon]

I'm no clocker myself, but have read several articles about the how-toos etc.

Overclocking the processor is only the beginning, after that is the PCI/AGP bus speeds...there are at least as critical as the FSB and CPU speeds are.

As frequency increases..the actual circuity on the boards ability to function without failure becomes the limiting part. Just a couple of years ago when many were still dealing with 500 Mhz mainboards and bus speeds, the circuit traces on the boards were more responsive to working with higher speeds than the boards of today are. Look on the back of most any mainboard...see all of the tiny bends back and forth?...kinda like a bunch of "U"s in some kind of series of loops?.. that was not put there for looks... they are chokes, and were designed in to force the circuits to work within some specific frequency. Overclocking defeats the designers corrections, and will fail.

Overclocking has pretty well come to an end because of the extreme frequencys that are now available and the precision that is required to make the boards work today.