System specs:
AMD 64 3000+ 90nm 939 socket Winchester core
MSI K8N Neo2 Plantinum Nforce 2 ultra
MSI Geforce 6800GT 256mb
2x 512mb pc400 (Its either Mushkin or Kingston, at work so ill have to check)
Sound Blaster Live Value
1x 250GB Maxtor 7200rpm HDD
1x 120GB Mactor 7200rmp HDD

Now I've tried to OC using two different methods. First was in the bios by increasing the FSB and not touching the voltage of either the ram or cpu. I was only able to get the CPU up to about 1.9* from 1.83ghz with out having it freeze.

The second method I used was a program provided on MSI webset called Core Center. It's a program uses within windows to increase the MHz. That also was not very stable even around 190GHz.

I know the CPU isnt over heating because I have a Zalamn 7700 HSF. The cpu runs at 30C while idle according to bios. Ive used MBM before and it said that the temp. was up around 80c which is impossible to believe since that would melt the cpu, correct?

Only thing I can think of that would cause my computer to be unstable would be the mobo or sound card. The CPU, as far as i can tell from reading posts, can handle the additional fsb increase. The ram is pc400 so you'd think it could survive the increase. I've heard some where that PCI slot cards can be adversly affected by overclocking and cause your system to become unstable? Is there any truth to this?

Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT:

One more thing I've noticed is that almost everyone, if not everyone on this forum talks about the Venice core and not the Winchester. Is the Winchester just not cut out for over clocking? I'm really hoping that I didn't waste my time/money on getting the wrong hardware, I'd have to go out and spend another $500. And even though that'd be really fun, I don't think my wallet would like it much.

Its your shitty ram.....set the ram divider and your winnie core can get upto about 2.5Ghz.

DDR400 is 200fsb...MOST ram can't handle OC'nig.

and you dont just OC the cpu, you oc the ram as well.

Honstly if your temps are low, and you haven't even got to 2Ghz yet its your ram.

RAM divider, then raise cpu slowly, there ya go.

OK Ill try to RAM divider when I get home.

If it is the ram, what would be a good brand for OCing? And I thought Kingston/Mushkin were good brands but i guess not.

They are good brands....for OCing you need select models of select brands.

Using a ram divider doesn' hurt performance so dont worry about it. If you get a good OC on your cpu you're fine