Subject: Athlon Thunderbird 1.4ghz HELP

Ok... I bought what I was told was a socket A 1.4 thunderbird with a 266 fsb and one 256meg 266 dimm. I have the dfi ak76sn mobo which has jumbers for fsb 200 or 266. Mobo also has dipswitches for cpu voltage and multiplier. I set the dip switches to sense default voltage and multiplier.
As per wucpuid they are 1.82v and 10.5x.... system is stable until ANY 3d game is played then it will crash to desktop or lock up. I have geforce2 gts, sblaster live value with newest bios and drivers. I have proven to myself that my psu is more than sufficient and went through all the usual tshooting ad nauseum. On a whim I thought that maybe my local shop sold me a 200fsp cpu and/or 200ddr ram. Ok so I set the jumpers on the mobo to 200 fsb... my cpu then read 1050 instead of 1400! All games played 100% stable. So then I upped the multiplier to the highest 12.5x setting with the same results... 100% stability. I went to amd site to see how to tell the difference between a 200 and 266 fsb cpu. I don't wan't to damage the cpu by taking off the heatsink to see if it has the "B" or "C". Is there any other way to tell the cpu's apart? Is there any way to tell what speed the ram is?

Yes I called the shop but I went around and around with them about this. They kept refering me to a windows app called "microscope". My point is this they SHOULD be able to tell me what I bought!!! Also my f!@#ing with the mobo jumpers and dip switches then isn't that what will be displayed by a windows app?!?! no the true reality of the hardware or am I wrong? Akso i dloaded a file from AMD's site called "amdcpuid.exe" and under the "CPU ID [0] entry called ECX it's value is 0x444D4163 "cAMD". Is this the C that denotes a 266 cpu.

Needless to say even if it turns out they are rated at 266 then they still sold me crappy generic DDR ram! What is the best ram to get for my rig? Damn I am tired and frazzled... been working on this for 3 days... if it turns out they sold me the wrong stuff I am going to be really pissed. If was an hones mistake ok but if they are really selling the mobo, cpu, ram combo like I bought OVERCLOCKED then...ah I guess I'll wait and see.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart and center of my tired frustrated brain!!!

Hmmm, 1.82 volts? T Bird voltage should be 3.4 volts and 1.70 volts core. I have heard of folks having problems with overvoltages as little as .05. If your MB offers the option, try manually setting the CPU voltages. Also the problem may be in which mb/sc/vc combination your running.

For instance what ver is your SB Live! The "latest" drivers from Creative (LW 3.0) are NOT for the Live! 5.1 series of sound cards. I was recently forced to remove my brand new SB Live! 5.1 card from my computer because it was not compatable with my MB and caused no end of video problems, system crashes/hangs etc. Replacing that card with an older version SB Live! solved all my problems. Check the mb manufacturers site for links to user FAQs. You may find that the answer to your problem has already been discoverd