Easytune locked me out of my bios

[surms41]

Not sure if this is the right place, but seems to be?

[G1.Sniper 3]
[i7-3770k]
I tried out easytune, got an OC stable. ~83c / 100BCLK / x45 multi / 1.32v, for 4.5Ghz
Rebooted PC as instructed by easytune.
I check the OC after boot, and now it's at 4.5Ghz with 1.4vcore, not 1.32vcore.

I reloaded the OC profile and it fixed the voltage, rebooted, and it went back to 1.4v again.

After a bunch of fussing with it, I uninstalled it in safe mode, like some suggest in other topics, just to be safe.
After uninstalling, I booted into windows to find it still OC to 4.5 with 1.4vcore...
I go into bios to change voltage to a manual 1.32v on the vcore, saved, booted into windows.
When I open up cpu-z to check voltage again, it's still at 1.4v.
Went back into bios to check if it had reverted, but was still at 1.32v in the bios.

Again, I did this a couple times to make sure I didn't mess anything up, 1.32v in bios, but still, 1.4v locked within windows... seems like some back-end of easytune is still attached and working.

I am able to use the PC at this voltage, but under 100% load it can get to 90c+...

Anyone have any info about this?


I have:
Reset bios to defaults
Clear CMOS
Flash BIOS with newer/older versions
Manually clear cmos with battery removal

*all voltage readings are 100% load P95, voltages read in cpu-z*


------edit-------
Trying to delete registry files linked to Easytune, will report back.
------edit2------
Deleted every gigabyte anything in every file I could find, and every single registry entry I could find.
Restarted and still at 1.4v in windows

 

[EarthDog]

Well, you aren't locked out.. but have you tried to reset the bios to default?

Do other applications show voltage at 1.4? How about a hardware measurement..does the board have a spot?

Does the bios show 1.320 where it reads it (not here you set it, note a reading)? Does that value change if you modify VT age and boot back to the bios?

 

[Johan45]

Have you tried dropping the voltage to 1.3v in BIOS and see if the Windows voltage drops as well to 1.38v could be another setting in BIOS that is overvolting your manul setting.

 

[surms41]

@EarthDog
Yeah, I'm not locked out, but may as well be.

Yes, bios set to default, showing default readings in bios, but overclock is applied on windows boot, at 4.5Ghz 1.4v.
Yes, HWmonitor showing 1.4v, and BIOS does in-fact show 1.320 volts.
There are many contacts for manual voltage readings, but I don't have a multimeter, sadly.
I am aware that software readings at a little off. My software readings are about .110v below the actual bios reading, as I have had alot of testing with this board/software temp readings.
--------

@Johan45
No, the voltage does not change the windows voltage at all when changing voltage in bios.
I tried 1.3v in bios, bios read 1.3v, and was still at the same 1.4v in both cpuz and hwmonitor.
--------

The only way I can change it is if I get easytune 6 again, which would just be puting a band-aid on a nearly severed arm.

 

[tachi1247]

A clean install of windows would almost certainly fix this, but I'm betting you would like to avoid that. Do you have a spare hdd you can do an install on and see if that solves the problem?

 

[surms41]

True, would be more simple.
I could boot into a spare drive with win7 on it... I will try that tomorrow.
But yes, I would like to use that as a last-last resort.
I could always forget about it and leave it as is, because it's not THAT bad of an overclock.
But again, doesn't really fix it.

 

[wingman99]

Can you do a screen shot of CPU-Z

 

[surms41]

https://imgur.com/BwmH3Kq

I rounded voltage.
Should be reading ~1.32.

And holy cow, ran P95 for 30mins, and came back to 106c, but tjmax is 105...

 

[wingman99]

Wow soft ware overclocking is bad on Gigabyte. Yes those temps are high, it should lower your clock speed.

 

[Johan45]

You could try uninstalling easytune and then running a cleaner like Ccleaner on the registry. It might pull out whatever the uninstaller is leaving behind.

 

[surms41]

I had uninstalled it in safe mode, just ran CCleaner for temp files and registry cleanup. Seems I missed 2 easytune file links, and went back to bios and set defaults again, after reboot, and there is no difference.

Haven't gotten to try another windows install yet, and may be a bit longer, as I think that would fix it. Don't want to restart my OS quite so soon

I will just reinstall easytune and try re-adjusting voltage so I do't cook my cpu for now


Thanks for the suggestions and help all.


-----edit-----
if this helps at all, this is with this version, "Easy Tune 6 B12.1121.1"
-----edit2-----
I just went to bios, set default, saved, and directly went back to bios after it saves and turned off.
The settings are saved at auto for everything, meaning 3.5Ghz, 1.17v, etc, but it is in-fact easytune in windows forcing direct bios changes on start. Pretty alarming

Gonna install the oldest bios that supports my cpu, and see what happens.

 

[surms41]

Okay, flashed oldest hardware-compatible bios (g1sniper.f6), and seems that this has solves the bios changing when going into windows, and no longer applies the overclocked settings at launch, even when easytune is uninstalled, turned off, etc....

What is odd, is that the software voltage is much less accurate than it was before, as with this bios version the numbers that I got with OCing to 4.5 again, the software voltage now reads 1.36v to achieve 4.5Ghz, but temperatures and wattage are identical to the 1.32v- 4.5Ghz OC on the older bios.
This is where a hardware voltage reader would come in handy
Either way, the oldest compatible version seems to be the best version in my case.

For now, I have easytune on and set it to manual default speeds, 3.9 boost and I added .15v to be safe with 1.85v. It now allows me to run a specific save on reboot!

I will check back tomorrow and try to do more in my bios to see if the problem is only solved temporarily, or over.

 

[EarthDog]

Drop EasyTune... LOL

 

[Johan45]

^^+1

Good you have it solved though.

 

[wingman99]

Glad you got it solved with Bios. I was wondering why your clock speed did not clock down with a temperature of to 106c, tjmax of 105. IIRC tjmax is a bios option, then the chip has a thermal shutdown at a higher temp if it's catastrophe, like fan failure.

 

[surms41]

Yeah, I went to go look in bios for a thermal limit for my chip, and found the critical shutdown temp is 130c... tjmax is 105, but it still reached up to 106c on the hottest core... still don't know.
It should have throttled for sure, but I think easytune's lock on the bios before didn't let it.

Just glad it resolved before real damage happened.
Yeah, I'm not using easytune for anything ever again.

Thanks all for hanging in with me

Bios ftw!