Thank you for the simple explanation of stepping! I thought it was more of a technical spec for the way the cpu functioned. Also, in response to another earlier post in this thread, my memory timings are 3,4,4,9 as reported by cpuz.
These are the default 'optimum' settings assigned by my bios, and I haven't tried to cut them back, but if my memory is flaking at these settings, lower settings wouldn't help, would they? Still running ram at stock 2.7v, 'cause I don't know how high is still safe, and I don't wanna fry the lil buggers. Have read conflicting information as to how much increasing ram voltage really helps anyhow, as opposed to the increases that the cpu gets from higher vcore. I have been running the chipset up to 1.8v along with the vcore. I suppose I could experiment by changing the multi for the ram down from 1:1 to slow it down and then try upping the fsb to see if the cpu and chipset still wanna run, that should tell me if the cpu or the ram is brickwalling me now.
As an aside, is it possible to read out the temps for the chipset and/or the memory, or are there no sensors for those chips? Thanx for all and any input.