I have an E6600 2.4, GA-965P-SE motherboard, and 2 gigs of corsair pc4200 533.

I've read every how to, searched for several hours on different forums, done everything suggested and I still can't get this thing to overclock.

I set the FSB, set the ram to 2x FSB, disabled all settings that might interfere (including those that shouldn't like TM2) followed several guides (2 specifically for this motherboard) and it still does nothing different when I boot. After I overclock it and save and exit it cuts off for 2-3 seconds like it should, boots right up, but its at the stock speed still. I check it with CPU-Z to double check and sure enough its still 2.4. I've ran out of things to change in the Bios.

The only possible thing I can think of is that my memory frequency needs to be lowered so I have headroom raising the FSB (although from reading about others, they've been able to overclock corsair memory fairly easily). I can't figure out how to do this though. Gigabyte's bios doesn't have an option to lower it and only allows you to raise the voltage or change the timings.

I've gotta be missing something somewhere. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Post your bios settings.

I'll take some pictures and post them when I get back from playing Golf.

Off the top of my head though here are the vital settings, FSB 270-330 tryed, Memory Frequency is 533 would grows and maintains a 1:1 ratio when upping the FSB. Memory timings = 4-4-4-12.

Every single program designed to regulate the cpu was disabled in the advanced bios settings. PCI freq 100mhz.

I've checked and rechecked everything. Has anyone ever had this problem? Its gotta be something simple.

Ok, I think I see it.

First, are you sure it's GA-965P-SE & not GA-965P-S3?

2nd, you're trying to lower memory frequency? Well, P965 overclocks the cpu & ram at a ratio. Look at the last screenie:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/m [...] html#sect0

2.00 is 1:1 ratio. So it only goes up. So your ram will always be equal to or higher than FSB.

You ram is holding you back. You can only go up to 266-ish for ram.

1066 / 4 = 266.5 * 9 = ~2.4ghz cpu
266.5 * 2 = 533mhz ram

Sadly, the ram isn't a good overclocker. If you want to go higher, get better ram like crucial ballistix for about $65 after rebate at newegg.

Yeah its an S3 (typo).

So i was right then. My ram is topping out at 533 and simply won't overclock anymore so that is holding everything back?

I don't wanta spend alot more. This DDR2 800 ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820161229 is 54 bucks for 2 gigs and several of the reviews say they succesfully overclocked it to 1000mhz. Seems like cheap reliable ram for my amateur purposes.

Let me make sure I have this straight: If I got DDR2 800 ram, it would run at 533 if my FSB is 266, so I'd in theory be able to OC the e6600 up to at least the stock frequency of my ram? So if I put it at FSB 330 it should successfully overclock and my memory would be at 660 mhz with a memory mulplier of 2 (1:1 ratio).

I'm kinda confused about that. Why do people by higher mhz ram if there processor's FSB only runs it at 533 etc. Does everyone have to overclock there FSB or at least up there memory mulplier on a stock 266mhzx9 system.

This is guaranteed to go as high as & beyond 1000mhz:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146565

After rebate, it's about the same price as most every ram.

Any ddr2 800 is better than ddr2 533, except for kingston valueram which uses the best chips like the expensive ram.

Correct. P965/P35/X38/X48(will be out) overclocks cpu & ram at a ratio. It largely depends on the ram. So in reviews, expensive ram is always used for overclocking.

In theory:

9 x 400 = 3.6 ghz cpu
400 x 2 = 800 mhz ram

Unlikely. Unless your cpu cooler & case cooling is above average.

More realistic:

8 x 400 = 3.2
400 x 2 = 800

That's doable on stock cooling.

The reason there are faster ram is that Intel chipsets aren't the only in the world. There are nvidia, via, sis etc. chipsets. nVidia 650i & 680i overclocks the cpu & ram at a ratio or independently. So 6x0i users can o/c only the ram to as high as possible.

Also, there are faster processors. X68xx (extreme) is the best x2 overclocker, 2nd to ES (engineer's samle, not for sale). Because they're multiplier unlocked - overclocker's dream. You could put x12, x11, etc. in bios. With faster cpus, the fsb goes higher. BTW, FSB1600 CPUs are coming in Q1/08.