Need help troubleshooting...

Hi guys,

I need some answers as to what the possibility might be. To start...here's what I'm working with:

Intel 7700k
MSI Z270 m5
EVGA GTX 1080
EVGA 750w P2 psu
16 GB 3000 ram
Windows 10

Now, to start, when I first got this CPU...everything was great. I was easily able to crank my cpu up to 4.8ghz at 1.25 volts and XMP my ram to the mentioned 3000 speed. I then started to have issues BSODing in certain games so I decided to up the voltage to 1.275. It worked great for a few weeks and then became unstable again...I then decided to go as high as 1.3 and 1.31. To be sure everything was good, I ran an OCCT for 10 hours of both voltages and passed without any hiccups BUT I would still blue screen during games. NOW, its come to the point where I cant run 4.8ghz at 1.36volts and 3000 speed on my ram without blue screening. I am able to run 4.8ghz at 1.36volts and 2133 speed on my ram. My question is, why in the hell have I needed to up my voltage so much after being just fine when I first got the cpu. Is something faulty? Is the cpu or mobo possibly faulty? Or could it be the ram because I blue screen when going up to its advertised speeds?

Due note, that when gaming at the default/turbo speeds of the cpu, I don't have any problems gaming. My temperatures are well within reason as well. Even at 1.36 volts at 4.8ghz, my temps hardly, if ever, go above 70 degrees...so that isn't the issue.

I'm at a loss and could use any advise as I have played around with this for some time now...

Thanks in advance.

Do you have problems at stock voltage with xmp on? See if you blue screen then.

Tgrable said:

Do you have problems at stock voltage with xmp on? See if you blue screen then.

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I believe if i use the cpus stock speeds, XMP will work. I know that at stock speeds, I can manually clock the memory to the 3000 speeds its set to run at. I also know that I was able to run my cpu at 4.8ghz with XMP on before. BUT NOW, thats almost unheard of.

I wonder if giving the system agent a voltage bump would help as it seems your issues are connected with high memory frequency.

What is the Vccio and Vccsa when running XMP using HWiNFO64.

wingman99 said:

What is the Vccio and Vccsa when running XMP using HWiNFO64.

View attachment 190268

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VCCSA: 1.256v
Where do I locate the VCCIO voltage? Cant seem to find it in HWINFO

IrishSlasher said:

View attachment 190270

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Looks like the motherboard does not have a reading for Vccio that is OK some don't. The Vccsa is fine at 1.256v, stock Vccsa without XMP is 1.060v. I'm sure the Vccio is fine also with XMP.

So everything looks to checkout? I just discovered that I can overclock to 4.7 at 1.34 volts with xmp on. However, anything higher than this seems like it won't work out. Is my cpu this bad? IF SO, how can my being able to get 4.8 at lower than 1.31 volts for weeks make any sense? I'm lucky if i can get 4.8 at 1.37 with xmp on(I can't). What gives?

The CPU maybe degraded a little or you did not subject the PC to the same loads. I have had the same luck before in a short period of time or long period of time, overclocking is a risk. When upping the Vcore a little ~1.344V can you get it stable again at 4.8GHz?

wingman99 said:

The CPU maybe degraded a little or you did not subject the PC to the same loads. I have had the same luck before in a short period of time or long period of time, overclocking is a risk. When upping the Vcore a little ~1.344V can you get it stable again at 4.8GHz?

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I understand that overclocking is a risk, i'm just having a very difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that the cpu could have degraded in a matter of weeks. It hasn't even been a month yet. I have to go as high as 1.37v for 4.8ghz...which is still in the safe area, but I just don't understand how i can go from 1.25-1.3 volts to 1.37 for the same speed.

IrishSlasher said:

I understand that overclocking is a risk, i'm just having a very difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that the cpu could have degraded in a matter of weeks. It hasn't even been a month yet. I have to go as high as 1.37v for 4.8ghz...which is still in the safe area, but I just don't understand how i can go from 1.25-1.3 volts to 1.37 for the same speed.

Click to expand...

I have had that kind of bad luck before many times over 22 years of overclocking. Sometimes out of a Billions of transistors one gives way a little right away with overclocking. I have had a processor degrade with overclocking in the first hour and I had to buy a new one to replace it. I see folks like you all the time that don't understand why they have a partial degradation or the chip dies. When they make processors there are a lot of defective chips that don't pass testing and some are borderline running stock speeds with durability or failure.

When they make a die for processors the amount of good die's for use is called yield, like 60-80% yield. Think of like when you go the grocery store for vegetables there some good ones with the bunch of not so good ones, however I never see perfect vegetables.

wingman99 said:

I have had that kind of bad luck before many times over 22 years of overclocking. Sometimes out of a Billions of transistors one gives way a little right away with overclocking. I have had a processor degrade with overclocking in the first hour and I had to buy a new one to replace it. I see folks like you all the time that don't understand why they have a partial degradation or the chip dies. When they make processors there are a lot of defective chips that don't pass testing and some are borderline running stock speeds with durability or failure.

When they make a die for processors the amount of good die's for use is called yield, like 60-80% yield. Think of like when you go the grocery store for vegetables there some good ones with the bunch of not so good ones, however I never see perfect vegetables.

Click to expand...

I appreciate the help, man. I guess i'm going to have to live with the fact that my chip just cannot overclock at all.

it happens man. i could do 4375mhz at 1.2v on my 5820k for about a year, then i started noticing my pc would be off sometimes when i left it for awhile and some other random issues. i bumped voltage a bit but then apparently the imc degraded because now i can oc my memory as much either. in my experience cpu's seem to degrade about one multiplier a year give or take but that's an arbitrary number. people with better cooling might be better off i'm not sure. another theory is bios corruption. i had some luck stabilizing by flashing the bios at one point. issues and degradation always seem to follow an attempt to up clocks or tweak memory.

Maybe you could try reflashing the Bios, to see if there is corrupted BIOS. I would just run at 1.37v for 4.8GHz If I were you.