I've thought I was pretty much done with the hardware part of my windows XP build. I chose parts I already had lying around that I've used myself for many years so I knew they were good. However I've encountered a weird and possibly an interesting issue.

Specifically my windows xp build uses:
A nice mini atx black acer case, A 480W ATX PSU, an Asus M2N68-AM SE2 mini ATX motherboard, an AMD Phenom X4 940 (black edition) 4 core 3ghz cpu, 2gb of 667mhz ddr2, a pci-e nVidia gts250 with 1gb vram and a Creative SB0730 sound.

Those in the know may have already spotted the problem. The CPU is not supported by the motherboard... But I've used it successfully for many years with no problems whatsoever. It is even more interesting when we consider why the cpu is unsupported. It is because that cpu is a 125W TDP model while the most powerful cpu this board supports is 95W TDP. (this is just tdp, actual power consumed can reach 200W!).

And yet I never had a problem, until now.

So what did I do to experience issues? I've fitted a different set of RAM sticks.

Why do I suspect the power when it never was a problem before? Well, normally when this pc operated I can put the tips of my fingers on the voltage regulator components next to the cpu and it just feels warm, but with this other RAM (ram is fine BTW) the inductors get really hot. They reach the pain threshold after 2 minutes on so they are probably 65C on the outside at least. They never got so hot before, but then I read inductors are the highest temp rated component there is and that they are perfectly happy until 150C (that can't be good for electrolytic caps right next to those inductors).

So this heating had me very concerned, but it is entirely possible it is not out of the ordinary and my system crashes for other memory related reasons...

So my usual "good" ram is a cheap set of transcend 1gb 667mhz ddr2 CL5 memory. Those are highly integrated single side (few chip) modules.

While the other ram (problematic) is an unmatched pair (but I also tried just one - the bigger with same results). It is Kingston 2gb 800mhz ddr2 CL6 dual sided module with 4 times the number of chips (I mention this because it may be relevant for power consumption).

The good ram runs at CAS 5 5 5 15, the "bad" runs at 6 6 6 18.

So my first question is. Is it better to run 2GB of faster RAM, or 3GB of slower RAM? (games could benefit from more ram, especially bioshock for example mentions 3gb as recommended).

Second, is it likely the motherboard could run the ram too fast on "auto" settings? When I have a cl5 and a cl6 stick installed, could it try running the slower stick at cl5 and therefore cause crashing?

Thirdly, if this is a memory capable of running CL6 at 800mhz,surely it should be capable of doing cl5 at 400mhz(thats the actual memory speed my motherboard runs at with this cpu by default)?

Finally, does any of the above make any sense? I'm trying to figure out if I can get this system to work with 3gb of ram I already have without pushing the memory timings even worse.

I hope I've painted a complete enough picture that someone familiar with tweaking those systems can give me some advice (preferably to tweak existing setup rather than "buy a better motherboard"). This motherboard has lots of timing/tweaking/overclocking options, unfortunately they are mostly designed to go up with overclocking. I would like to under clock some parts to test few ideas, but other than lowering the cpu multiplier, and ram timings I can't push clocks lower, just higher(same with voltages...).

It did cross my mind the psu is inadequate so I tried running with no gpu (the MB has onboard graphics), but with no difference. So probably it is not the psu being overloaded.

Also if anyone has working bios download links for this MB that would be great, unfortunately it doesn't exist on theretroweb.com.

Edit: I found a kind of stable config. I think on auto settings the MB was trying to run the ram at too fast cas and fsb (as one module was faster cas, the other faster fsb). So by setting manually to 333mhz(ram at 666mhz) and the slower cas I got it to work.

But those inductors still get very hot. Is that normal? Perhaps I'll add some radiators to them.