Help needed with i5 2500k at 4.5GHz on an Asus P8Z68V LX

[jotasss]

Hi guys, this is J from Portugal, and I'm an overclocker... (thanks to you! lol)

I've read quite a lot of posts here and there about the i5 2500k and figured it should be taken to 4.5GHz with no problem, after all, I bought an aftermarket cooler for a reason...

I rly need some help, since my system is not working as it should! So, the thing is...

I Built a new system earlier this year, (it's the one you see on my signature) and the guy at the store told me I should change the AI Tweaker to XMP instead of auto, this way the mobo would recognize the memory modules and load the actual timings and latencies! Which it did! Great, right? Unfortunately, the system became unstable and started "hanging", even on the BIOS screen!! So I manually reseted the board, and managed to update the BIOS! The system still kept on hanging, now even with the optimized/stock values (no XMP)!

I took the PC to the store, and the guy teared it apart, and plugged everything back! Everything worked fine since, he tested the RAM with memtest and when I picked it up, it was still on, running memtest for about 4 hours! Finally!!!
The weird thing is that he didn't replace anything, nor did he changed the BIOS for anything that wasn't tried/configured as before by me!

I came home happy with my (finally working) PC! Did my thing, then came here on the forum to check some overclock settings, and managed to configure my system to run at 4.5GHz on a lower than 1.35v (around 1.33v)! I left prime95 running for about 6 hours, and had no errors what so ever, and the CPU max temps didn't even got to 70ºC (65ºC rly!)

The day after, the system didn't boot! I mean, the computer is ON and nothing shows up on screen, I kept manually restarting until it finally showed up something on screen, since these asus mobos' now supposedly have auto-recover! And now I'm running on stock speeds, because the config that I had tested, now hangs (and temps were alright too)!

Could this be a motherboard defect? I mean, the system was hanging on first time it ever run! Was then updated, everything plugged back in, and was ok! Now hangs out of nowhere, etc etc. Was stable, now I cant even log in to windows! WTH?!

Should I get it replaced? Are there specific tests I could run to see if it should be replaced? What if it's the CPU or RAM ? Everything is new, except for my graphics card (I have it since last summer 2011)

Thanks a lot!!!

 

[Davidleebjr]

hmmmmmmm.

I'm running an Asus p8z68v pro /gen 3 and i took mine right to 4.2.. then running now for 3 weeks on 4.4ghz @ 1.368v. [I do have mine set to XMP] and i idle at 36-40c temps.

I have the same bios you have and maybe this video can give you a little help and get the extra .1 hz that you need. There maybe a setting in this vid that can help you see where your rig is set up a little different.

 

[jotasss]

Mobo was not working properly, got it replaced today by a MSi Z77A-G45! Gonna test it out later, thanks!

 

[txus.palacios]

No. Please, no. If I were you, I'd give that Z77 back to the shop. MSi used to have pyromaniac VRMs back then in AM3. You may think they should've fixed that. Well, so did I believe with ASRock boards and their BIOSes, and my old P67xt4 died of a BIOS flash.