CPU is under clocking at full load without reaching high temps

Greg Martin · Mar 27, 2013

I was considering overclocking my CPU a little bit because I have never done it before and wanted to start somewhere but before I got into it I ran OCCT to test some things and noticed that my CPU UNDERCLOCKS up to 25% before it even reaches 45 degrees! does anyone have any idea why it would be doing this?

I have to admit I am normally the type to build and forget but I wanted to start getting more out of my investments. That said I don't know how dumb these questions may be. When running OCCT the overclock goes anywhere from +17% to -25% and usually in the negative. This seems to happen as soon as the temperatures start reaching 44 degrees. and never exceed 52 degrees.

The clock speed fluctuates wildly under full load I don't know how normal that is. As a side note my PSU is pretty old I don't know if that has anything to do with it but its 550 volts

CPU = AMD FX-6300 Vishera 3.5GHz 6 core
Mobo = ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS
Video = SAPPHIRE 100358L Radeon HD 7770
RAM = G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1866
HDD = SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 ST250DM001 / HD253GJ 250GB
OS = Windows 7 64bit

Thank you so much in advance

thently · Mar 27, 2013

Install AMD Overdrive might give you an idea of what is going on.. Does it feel slower when it "underclocks" How the boost works is it only boosts the cores needed to the highest speed within a thermal range set in the cpu. say I am watching a movie my cpu will sit at idle @ 1600 mhz @ full load all 4 cores 4 ghz 2 cores 4.1 1 core 4.2 ect. This is an intel example but same concept. Load up Overdrive and then run whatever and see what it is showing.

Thent

Greg Martin · Mar 27, 2013

all six cores are identical at idle they are all around 3.8 slightly changing at full load is when it starts to throttle down and it definitely feels like there is a performance loss with it. During skyrim when I play around high particle areas it slows down significantly. Seems odd to me that all the cores seem the same and it doesn't throttle down at all while idle. Do you think something is wrong with my motherboard?

thently · Mar 28, 2013

Well my next guess is either a heat or power problem. Try taking the side off your pc and putting a big fan blowing in there then try again. If that does nothing then i would look at the power supply next.

Thent

Greg Martin · Mar 30, 2013

So I took the side off put a big fan next to it nothing got over 45 degrees and it still underclocked by about 15%. When i turn turbo core off it doesn't fluctuate like that and the heat still doesn't rise past 50ish. I did notice when it is completely idle the clock goes down about 59% according to occt but not according to overdrive. The clock speeds do go down to 3.0 during full load according to both occt and overdrive. So you think its the psu then?

The more I think about it the more power makes sense because according to overdrive it brings the cpu volts up a little bit during turbo core maybe my old psu can't handle it? its an old BFG I replaced a new one with because when I built this machine the one I bought for it would cause the computer to shut down during high loads this one is only 550 watts. Here is a link to my old thread talking about it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1627267/issue-build-computer-shuts-playing-skyrim.html#10535943

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CPU is under clocking at full load without reaching high temps

Greg Martin

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