First time OCing (Q6600 B3); need help!

Hey guys, I just took my first stab at overclocking, and everything seemed to be going smoothly until my last attempt, at which I began encountering BSODs. Here are the integral specs and here's what I did:

eVGA 680i (latest BIOS installed)
Intel Q6600 B3 (started at stock clock speeds)
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) (Timings: 5-5-5-18-2T)

After reading up on the basics of OCing, I felt relatively confident with what I was doing, aside from my FSB/RAM ratio. I keep reading that 1:1 is ideal, but I'm very ignorant and uneducated in this department specifically. In my BIOS, when you go to tweak the FSB (which is quad-pumped btw...kind of annoying to keep doing calculations on each attempt), it asks if you'd like your FSB and RAM to be Linked or Unlinked. If you choose Linked, you still have the option of choosing a ratio (1:1, 5:4, etc.) or leaving the memory set to Auto. Being quite the noob, I left this option set to Auto, and saw that it would automatically increase the clock speed on my memory as I increased the FSB.

Anywho, before I started OCing, I tried to establish some sort of baseline. Using RealTemp (which I had previously tweaked to match up with my Q6600 as per some guide I found), my idle temps at stock speeds were about 33 Celsius. To test load temps, I fired up one instance of Prime95 and ran it for 10 minutes and saw my temperatures max out at 47 Celsius. I know one typically runs P95 for hours on end to test stability, but I was really just trying to see what my load temps. I'm not even sure if this was a legitimate method of going about it, so feel free to yell at me for that.

After all that, I hopped into my BIOS and gradually increased the FSB by increments of 5MHz, creeping up from 267.0x9 (2.4gHz) to 289.5x9 (2.6gHz). After each bump of 5MHz, I would read my idle temps off of RealTemp and see them sit about identical to my idle temps @ stock speeds. After I hit 2.6gHz, I decided to check my load temps with my P95/10minute method, and I saw my load temps at just about the same as before, 46-47 Celsius.

I continued bumping by 5MHz with the same routine, up until I reached 304.5x9 (2.74gHz). At this point, my system was hanging on "Detecting IDE drives..." during my POST. I decided to take note at this point my Memory Clock had been automatically increased to 914MHz, and the timings had automatically been changed to 5-6-6-21-2T. After my system automatically defaulted my clock speeds for me (I was expecting to have to play with my Clear Jumper or CMOS battery -- quite convenient), I tried the same clock settings as before, except this time I began playing with voltages. I read on some guide that you should first increase your Memory Voltage, so I bumped that up by one interval from its default 1.85V to 1.875V. After reboot, the same issue occurred, so I then tried increasing what I believe to be my chipset voltages. In my BIOS, I believe these are listed as nForce SPP and nForce MCP (not 100% sure whatsoever, but I figured a tiny bump in voltage wouldn't be fatal, so I went for it). I bumped the SPP voltage up by one interval from 1.2V to 1.25V, and upon reboot, was greeted with my first BSOD after passing POST during Windows loading. Back to the BIOS, I then bumped up the nForce MCP from 1.5V to 1.525V, and had the same BSOD. I then noticed another voltage option, "HT nForce SPP <-> MCP, so I bumped that up from 1.2V to 1.25V, but was greeted with the same BSOD (Machine_Check_Exception). The only other two voltage options in my BIOS were CPU Core and CPU FSB, so I tried increasing my CPU Core from 1.27V to 1.28125V, but again, BSOD. Finally, I tried increasing the CPU FSB voltage up from 1.4V to its maximal 1.5V (was a bit hesitant about this as it was the max setting allowed), and still had the BSOD.

After all of those attempts, I finally defaulted my clock speeds and voltages, and here I am.

As I said, I'm a bit of a noob to all of this, especially when it comes to memory and voltages (and in which order to increase them to gain stability).

I am aware that the B3 revision of the Q6600 isn't nearly as good as the G0 for OCing, but I've read of people achieving 3gHz without much trouble, and I like to think that my case has more than ample air cooling. My system is running inside NZXT's Zero case, which sports four 120mm side intake fans, two 120mm exhaust fans in the rear, one 80mm blowhole fan, and one 120mm intake fan in the front bottom. I also have a Zalman CNPS9500 with AS5, and I've recently cleaned out and tidied up my case.

Also of note is that my memory is brand new, and has only been in my rig for 2-3 days as of now.

So, I'd like to bring my Q6600 up to at least 2.7-2.8gHz if possible, although I imagine my memory isn't the greatest for OCing. I have no idea what I can do to achieve a nice, stable OC in that range (or better if possible), so I'm hoping someone here can guide me.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.