• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Drastic performance drop after overclocking - Did I damage something?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Bombchu

New Member
Joined
May 12, 2015
Hello. I am new to performance hardware and I just recently built my first gaming machine. I guess I'll start with my rig. I'm not really sure what info you guys need, so if I leave something out let me know.

MB: MSI 760GMA-P34 FX
CPU: AMD FX 6300 6 core @ 3.5ghz
GPU: MSI R9 270X Hawk
RAM: 8gb DDR3
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Service Pack 1

Ok, so I got it all put together about a week ago, and started up Skyrim with everything turned all the way up. Ran great. Felt like a consistant 50-60 fps at all times. Over the last few days I've thrown on a few mods that made the performance drop, so I thought I'd look into overclocking. My cpu specs say 3.5ghz (4.1ghz turbo). I take that to mean that it can go up to 4.1ghz safely. And everything I read about my gpu says that it's built for overclocking. It even has that afterburner software that lets you slide some levers to easily do so. The biggest danger that I gathered from what I read, is overheating, so today I installed a couple more case fans. I ran my cpu through the overclock testing that's built into the catalyst control center, and I let it test up to 4.1ghz, and the temp never went above 42. I turned it down to 4.0 to keep from pushing it to what I presumed to be it's advertised limit. I used the afterburner sliders to turn my gpu core clock all the way up to 1400 and the memory up to about 1700. I threw the hardware monitor up on my second monitor along with a little app called speedfan (basically just a hardware monitor), just to make sure the temps I was seeing were correct. I booted up Skyrim with some tasty mods. and I could tell immediately from the animated loading screen that the game's fps was very unstable. And before the game could finish loading I got a blue screen crash. I immediately rebooted and turned off all overclocking, and turned off all Skrim mods, restoring it to what before was a steady 50-60 fps state. But when the game loaded, the performance was terrible. the framerate was well below 30 fps, and there was awful input lag. I double and triple checked that I had restored all overclock settings back to default and turned off all mods, and I hadn't forgotten anything. All settings were exactly the same as they were when I first played, but the game ran just awful. I guess I should note that I haven't noticed any issues outside of the game in case that's helpful.

So, did I damage something? Would a fresh driver reinstall fix this? Maybe a windows reinstall? Any ideas at all about what I could do to fix the situation?

Thank you for your help! :)
 
MB: MSI 760GMA-P34 FX


This is your problem. Set your clocks to stock and don't overclock it. Fair warning!

edit: yes its possible you damaged something, sorry!
 
Last edited:
Even a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P would be loads better!

Number 1, that MSI model is a bottom-of-the-barrel model and the bottom-of-the-barrel MSIs are a horror show even at stock!!

OTOH, it wouldn't surprise me if a bottom-end Gigabyte does fine with a stock 8 core FX.
 
I set everything back immediately after the blue screen crash. That's when I noticed the problem. I reinstalled the video card driver, the catalyst software, and even the game, it's no better. Do I need to change a bios setting or something?

- - - Updated - - -

Even a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P would be loads better!

Number 1, that MSI model is a bottom-of-the-barrel model and the bottom-of-the-barrel MSIs are a horror show even at stock!!

Even a bottom-end Gigabyte likely will be fine with a stock 8 core FX.


Lol, alright. Good to know. Can you suggest a good mobo for around $70-$80?
 
If bios is stock, the best you can do is underclock and hope you didnt brick your motherboard unfortunately.
 
MB: MSI 760GMA-P34 FX


This is your problem. Set your clocks to stock and don't overclock it. Fair warning!

edit: yes its possible you damaged something, sorry!

Is there any way of knowing what, if anything, was damaged so I know what I need to replace?
 
Your symptoms sound like an unstable GPU. (low FPS and a crash) And just in case, bring both GPU and VRAM back to stock temporarily.
 
Your symptoms sound like an unstable GPU. (low FPS and a crash) And just in case, bring both GPU and VRAM back to stock temporarily.

Everything is as stock as I know how to make it. I turned off overclocking in the catalyst software, and even though I didn't touch the MB bios, I reset them to failsafe defaults. No change. Thank you for your reply :)
 
So, is there any way to tell what, if anything, needs to be replaced? Thanks.
 
Back