i was wondering on a floyd rose.. do you want to tighten the bolts near the head stock really tight? or if u get it tight enough will it snap the strings? (wanna be cuacious with those things )

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NO! do not overtighten, youre gonna strip the threads. and you wont snap a string either.

tighten them with your fingers until ya cant tighten anymore, then maybe tighten an 1/8th turn with the allen key.

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it seems if i do that.. it gets knocked out of tune when i use the tremolo arm ( i dont pull the arm down very much either)

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yeah, that shit happens to me alot, but somehow i just fixed it, dont know how i did it, but i did.

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what guitar is it?

anyway, you could try either tightening up the screws a bit more or, look into replacing the springs in the back of the tremolo, perhaps they are of poor quality?

or if its a shit guitar, then your neck is usually bending enough to knock it out of tune. it happens. usually with bolt on necks.

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you should have them tight enough to prevent the tuning machines from affecting the pitch- and no more than that.

Tighten them, then twist a tuner (@ the headstock). If the string changes pitch, you've got it too loose. If it doesn't change, it's tight enough, and there's something else wrong.

Andras made several good suggestions, my only additon would be to make sure you're stretching the strings enough.

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the tricky thing with the Floyd Rose is when you're tuning, (especially with new strings) you'll tune one and take another out of tune, you have to just keep retuning
until they all stick in tune. Once you have them intune tighten the nut, and do one mire final tune with the fine tuners. You should be good, sometimes when the strings get old you have to retighten with the regular tuners because you'll have used up all the play in the fine tuners. It's a pain in the ass when you first get a FR but it's no big deal. After a few string changes you'll be tuning and restringing in no time easy.

I had a couple of Kramers with Floyd Rose tremolos on them. I really hated the things but I learned to live with it. One thing I always did was tune the guitar flat and after locking it down I adjusted the fine tuners. Course I was the guy who bought the guitar because it looked cool and had no idea what I was getting into. Since then I haven't had another one, well I did have a Squire Fat Strat with a Floyd Rose copy or something. I just removed the arm, added two springs in the back, and leveled the bridge with a shim. Fixed bridge for me.

I got a new Jackson DKMG, and my string broke, now I have to change all
of them, thats going to be a BITCH!!!

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Do you have to fuck with the FR everytime you want to switch tunings? If I was in E or D Standard and I wanted to drop tune, would I have to mess with the springs or anything?

you might be able to get away with a full step down, certainly a half step. it depends what gauge the strings are. i use 9s, but dont tune down more than a half step. any more than than a whole one and youre probably looking at heavier strings, and so another spring will probably be needed.

sometimes i alternate between standard and a half step down, so when i retune i put folded card under the tremolo to keep it fixed, unlock the strings at the bridge releasing one lock at a time i tune with the pegs, lock the strings then fine tune if need be at the end.