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Computer crashes at recently stable overclock

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Vozdok

New Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2014
Hi guys,
I'm new here and I'm a first time overclocker.
I recently bought a new computer and thought that I should learn how to do some basic overclocking since I read a lot about it and everyone seemed to be happy with the results. It also seems that overclocking have gotten a lot easier these days than it was before.

My build is:
BitFenix Prodigy M (Chassi)
Kingston HyperX Fury Black DDR3 1600MHz CL10
MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming
Crucial MX100 512 GB (soon to be replaced with a 840 EVO at 500 GB)
WD Green WD10EZRX 1TB
Intel Core i5 4690K
Corsair Hydro H90
Corsair CS650M
Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5

I simply used the Gigabyte EasyTune program that had overclocking presets, and I used the one at 4.5 GHz (with a core voltage slightly above 1.3 V) called “Extreme”. I increased the multipliers to 47, ending at 4.7 GHz without changing anything else. I saved these as presets in Intel XTU, which I then used from that point.

Since this frequency seemed to be deemed a pretty good overclock for the 4690K I was satisfied with it, and I experienced an increase in benchmarkings.
I tried stress testing the stability both with the Intel XTU stresstest for a couple of hours and by playing games (Battlefield 4 mainly), and everything worked great. During these tests I also monitored the temperature of the CPU with both NZXT CAM and Intel XTU, and the temperatures never went above 72 degrees Celsius (which it only reached for very short durations, the mean temperature was around 60 degrees Celsius).

I turned on the overclock settings before starting a game, and downclocked it to the default setting when I was done. I always used Intel XTU for this, since it didn’t required a reboot.
This worked great for a couple of weeks, and I never experienced any crashes or instability.

Then this weekend when I was going to apply the overclocking (which I hadn't done for about one week) the computer crashed directly. I tried applying a lower overclock (the “Extreme” preset in EasyTune at 4.5 GHz), which also lead to a crash. I also tried applying the same overclock with Intel XTU which resulted in a crash after a couple of seconds. I didn't have any programs running in the background when I applied the overclocks, and EasyTune overclocks the cpu during a reboot.

I have no idea why this doesn’t work anymore, and I haven’t changed anything with my computer. Is it possible that I damaged my cpu by overclocking it in the first place?
Does anyone have any idea if this can be solved? Or do I have to avoid overclocking my cpu from now on?

Thanks in advance
Vozdok
 
Vozdok, we do not recommend using the motherboard or software to do the overclocking for us. Your best bet is to set everything back to default and then read this guide. I have not found overclocking software to be very reliable when it comes to stability. I doubt that you have done any damage to the chip if you watched the temperatures like you said you did. Just start over and use the guide, test for stability and you should be able to run it while overclocked without an issue.
 
Hi Mandrake,
Thank you for your answer. I guess the software was too good to be true, with having a stable clock after one click.
I will follow the guide and see if this resolves the issue.
 
+1 manny, my asrock A tune would crash every few hours, I used another feature in it, turning on and off hard drives but it being such bad software I just have to give it up.
 
When I read about the auto-OC programs out there I saw a couple of bad reviews coming from people that knew how to OC manually, but it was so easy and fast so I had to try it. I guess the same applies to all other "automatic programs" :(

I also thought that it was a good thing to not always have the CPU overclocked, and just turn the OC on when I knew I would need it. But I guess that it doesn't really matter that much, many seem to have their CPUs permanently overclocked.

I will share my results when I've OCed manually, haven't found the time for it yet.

I have now done the overclock via the UEFI, and it seems to be stable at 4.7 GHz with a voltage of 1.27 (1.25 was stable while only stresstesting with AIDA64, while 1.27 was required for stability while running 3D mark firestorm processor test, heaven, Intel XTU processor stress test and AIDA64 at the same time for 10 minutes). The temperatures never went above 70 degrees celcius.

Thanks once again for the guide Mandrake, it was really easy to follow!
 
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