SOLVED Major problems overclocking HELP

I've been having some major problems overclocking. I'm almost not going to do it anymore because nothing works long term.. After a successful mild overclock @ 4Ghz (3770K) with Prime95 for hours on end, I shut down, and turn the system on the next day, and the system goes into a BIOS boot loop and the number shows 96, you hear a faint blip then starts over. I have the GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard. I have to hit the Reset CMOS reset on the mother board to get it come alive again.

I', just doing simple stuff. I originally tried 4.5Ghz @ 1.28v, RAM at 1.65v, ran prime95 for 4 hours without an issue. the next day the same thing. BIOS boot loop.

SPECS:

Corsair TX650W
GA-Z77X-UD5H
Kingston Hyper X DDR3- 1600Mhz (KHX1600c9D3B1RK2/8GX) x 2
Core i7-3770K
GTX480 2x monitors
GT240 2x monitors
Intel HD 4000 x2 monitors
Corsair H100i Push pull config with CorsairLINK 2
Coolermaster HAF 932 case
Agility 3 240 gig SSD

Its running stock even with C1E turn on... YIKES!

HELP!

I originally tried 4.5Ghz @ 1.28v,

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I'm gonna guess the Cpu voltage is low. Usually at this speed I need mine at 1.38v (give or take on temps) to get a stable OC at 4.5ghz.

If your OCing, turn off the power savings stuff so you can have proper current to the Cpu at all times.

ShrimpBrime said:

I'm gonna guess the Cpu voltage is low. Usually at this speed I need mine at 1.38v (give or take on temps) to get a stable OC at 4.5ghz.

If your OCing, turn off the power savings stuff so you can have proper current to the Cpu at all times.

Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing... So frustrating..

Then it boots much slower..

Right now I did not touch the voltage. running @ 4Ghz. lets see

If I shut down and turn it on again... instant boot loop..

well time to diagnose....

Run everything at stock, meaning clear the CMOS and start over. Run testing at stock speeds to be sure HW is good.

Run Memtest on your Ram for starters. Then in windows do your usual stability testing.

If the bios loops while system is stock, you can try updating the bios.

Running memtest now, but nothing has come up.. no errors thus far @ 44%

OMG
You'll never guess what it was???!!!

The one of my video cards... the GT240 does not like this board...

I took the GTX480 out, and the problem still existed! So I was running the GT240 and on board..

I took the GT240 out, and just did HD 4000, shut down. press power, and it worked!

I put the GT240 back in, instant boot loop. Took it out, it worked fine.

I put the GT240 in all PCI-e slots with same results..

I used my 9500GT, and it worked fine, I put my GTX480 back in, and its working!!

No more BIOS boot loops!

I'm currently running @ 4.5ghz without an issue...

Thanks god!

It sounds almost reproducible, so I wouldn't suspect RAM in the first place. From my experience, faulty RAM leads to random BSODs.
I would suggest clearing everything and updating BIOS is worth a try.
And yeah, 1.28V could be a bit low for 4.5Ghz. Did you try setting the RAM timings manually when OCing?

Edit: too slow Congratulations, glad you found the error

idkfa said:

It sounds almost reproducible, so I wouldn't suspect RAM in the first place. From my experience, faulty RAM leads to random BSODs.
I would suggest clearing everything and updating BIOS is worth a try.
And yeah, 1.28V could be a bit low for 4.5Ghz. Did you try setting the RAM timings manually when OCing?

Edit: too slow Congratulations, glad you found the error

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RIght on... I've had DVD rom drives give random boots. It's sucks.

+2 glad you got it fixed!