8120 already overclocked out of the box?

[Kamikaze-Turtle]

I own a new FX-8120, and know that it should be running at 3.1 ghz stock. However, CPUZ puts it at 3.888. This is when I'm doing nothing at all.

I have heard that AMD Cool 'n Quiet does some throttling to save energy and whatnot, but is this how it should be acting? Just curious. I'm also pretty oblivious about how the multiplier works as well, and mine is sitting at 15.5.

So there's a good chance I just have no idea what the numbers I'm looking at are, can someone confirm it so I can learn?

Thanks!

 

[RGone]

You gave not nearly enough information to give an answer. Motherboard and such is a must to try and help.

My guess is you have turned on some bios overclock wizard or genie since CPUz shows the FSB is 250 and it should be 200.

 

[trents]

Yeah, that'd be my guess too.

 

[Kamikaze-Turtle]

Hmm interesting. I really don't tweak and OC my stuff, and I usually turn off the wizards and whatnot that do it automatically.

My Mobo is an Asus M5A97, and I wasn't aware that it came with any kind of optimization for my CPU. Any ideas on how I can turn it back to stock?

I get a lot of random BSOD's that point to ntkrnlmp.exe and ntsokrnl.exe and I read that CPU issues can sometimes be the cause of them.

Also I just double checked my BIOS utility settings. AMD Turbo Core is off, the OC setting is set to "Manual" and I double checked to make sure that there wasn't any automatic overclocking going on. Every other setting is set to "auto", which I'm assuming just takes factory specs and runs with it.

Hmm... maybe this IS the cause of those BSOD's I'm getting. I've updated my drivers to hell and back, reinstalled my OS more times than I care to mention, and have run more tests on my RAM than I would have ever liked. Could upping the voltage or some other trick help out? I've never done CPU OC'ing before, the most I've dabbled with is tweaking the sliders on the built in software that came with my graphics card.

MOBO > Asus M5A97.
CPU & Cooler > FX-8120, Corsair H70 cooler.
MEMORY > Corsair 8 gig 1600 mhz DDR3
POWER SUPPLY > Corsair 750W
VIDEO CARD > Saphire HD 6950
HDDs/Optical drives > Crucial 64 gig SSD, Western Digital Caviar Black 640gig HD
SOUND DEVICE > HT OMEGA Striker
USB > Usb Devices Plugged to Mobo?
O/S > Windows 8
Case > NZXT Phantom

 

[trents]

Change the CPU Frequency in the Tweaker section of bios to back to 200 from 250.

 

[Kamikaze-Turtle]

Change the CPU Frequency in the Tweaker section of bios to back to 200 from 250.

Yeah, that did the trick. It's at 3.1 ghz now.

When I manually changed the bus speed from 250 to 200, it also changed the RAM from 1666mhz to 1333mhz. I changed it back from the drop down menu to 1600mhz, would it be wiser to keep it on 1333? In fact I'm not even sure what the relation between the two is in the first place, so what would you suggest?

 

[RGone]

Setting to DDR1600 should be no issue with FX-series cpu.

 

[Kamikaze-Turtle]

Setting to DDR1600 should be no issue with FX-series cpu.

Thanks for the help.

Also just a quick question, could that small but unintentional OC be the cause of some of my BSOD's? And also, what caused it to be set to 250 in the first place? I never touched that setting before, and it seems that it should have been set at 200. Did the RAM have anything to do with it?

 

[RGone]

Thanks for the help.

Also just a quick question, could that small but unintentional OC be the cause of some of my BSOD's? And also, what caused it to be set to 250 in the first place? I never touched that setting before, and it seems that it should have been set at 200. Did the RAM have anything to do with it?

Don't know how FSB got to 250. I "always" clear the CMOS when I get ready for my first boot-up of a new setup and never have seen such behavior. Only hear of such about once every year or so in the forums and we never have anyone say they did it by accident.

250FSB could cause BSOD.

 

[Kamikaze-Turtle]

Don't know how FSB got to 250. I "always" clear the CMOS when I get ready for my first boot-up of a new setup and never have seen such behavior. Only hear of such about once every year or so in the forums and we never have anyone say they did it by accident.

250FSB could cause BSOD.

Weird. Especially since both mobo and CPU were brand new. Didn't tweak anything either. Oh well. Everything seems more normal now, and setting RAM to 1600 manually didn't seem to effect anything, so I'm just assuming that it's all good on that front to.

Thanks for the help!

 

[caddi daddi]

you might check on the motherboard site and check for a later bios update or one bios lower.
asus released new bios for the crosshair and sabertooth and it looks all bulldozer aimed, I am all phenomII right now and the huge jumps in vcore voltage make them unusable on these cpu's.

 

[trents]

Weird. Especially since both mobo and CPU were brand new. Didn't tweak anything either. Oh well. Everything seems more normal now, and setting RAM to 1600 manually didn't seem to effect anything, so I'm just assuming that it's all good on that front to.

Thanks for the help!

Makes me wonder if indeed the motherboard was brand new or had been just recertified and sold as new.