Cooler chip, less overclock!?!!?!?!?!

[CapYoda]

Well it was late one night and we were chatting on mIRC and xkali suggested I check if this retail P3 450 has thermal pad on it, since its running at like 57-58C when its fully loaded. So anyways I never taken off the retail heatsink before but I've read the instructions and it as xkali said, wasn't rocket science so I unassemble the heatsink/fan without that much trouble, used some nail polish to remove the melted thermal pad, and applied thermal grease on the bad boy. A few hours later I decided to reapply it cuz I dont think I reinstall the heatsink/fan right and it was wiggling and stuff.... anyways long story short, the chip was running stable before at 600mhz (133x4.5) voltage at 2.11, and the games didn't crash. Heck long ago I was running Quake3 at 2.02 voltage but now it demands more for reasons beyond me. The chip is now running at around 52C in windows and like 53C in running games... but the problem is the games crash now... when I applied the thermal grease the first time, the games seemed to run fine, i dind't spend that much time on it though... the second time however (and it was a lot cooler the second time I reapplied it) the games are crashing like right away. I double checked to make sure it wasn't my video card's overclocking and I set it to default and ran the games but they still crash... so I lower the clock speed to like 566mhz and have the video card overclock and the games didn't crash... I figure it needed more voltage (even though logic would say if it worked fine at 2.11 before no reason why it needs more now) I pump it up 7.5% and it still crashed at 2.16, I tried +10% and it still crashed at 2.21!!! And the temperature is at 54C too, remember that before I applied thermal grease it was at like 57-58C at 2.11, now its 2.21 at 54C but the games crashes!?!
I might settle for 566mhz but it pisses me off on how I've got the chip cooler only to have less speed... go figure. I can't tell if its software or hardware yet... Counter Strike just boots into Windows (something it did before I uped the voltage to 2.11) and Quake3 display a illegal program operation where I can close it and use windows again with no problem... I duno, once I had a BSoD saying something about my LTMODEM (its a winmodem, it does use the cpu, so er.. is that it!? sheesh) Anyways thats my only lead right now, I'm going to switch modem to see whats up. But if that doesn't work, Im clueless. The chip is cooler, the heatsink is hotter cuz its being used better now... but that shouldnt cause the crash as long as the chip is cooler. I ordered a golden orb anyways awhile ago just cuz I felt like spending money... ahhhhhhhhhh. this is seriously pissing me off... I feel so underpowered... not even running at 600mhz... slow... so slow... can't... take speed...

[CapYoda]

boy that's a long story. Just trying to have as much details as possible...

thanks for any input, btw. hehe.