I think my "OC" fried my board

[alzerm]

The morning of the Battlefield 4 beta release I jumped on and noticed I was lagging quite a bit. I knew that it wasn't my connection rather my odd/weak build. I got access to the early beta since I pre-ordered the BF4 deluxe edition (which I think may have been kind of stupid with my setup). I decided to "OC" (if I can really even call it that haha) my cpu to see if it'd help. This is the setup I had.

Mobo: MSI 890FXA-GD65
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1035T
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1333 (F3-10666CL7D-8GBRH)
GPU: VisionTek HD 7850 2GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda LP Hard Drive 1TB 5900rpm 32MB SATA-3G
SSD: SanDisk Extreme SSD 120 GB (SDSSDX-120G-G25)
Sound Card: Xonar DS
CPU Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
PSU: Ultra LSP650 650-Watt
Case: Ultra X-Blaster ATX Black Mid-Tower Case

I looked around and found on a different forum someone who OC'ed the same cpuI had so I went ahead and tried the settings they used. I don't remember the exact settings I had but I had tweaked the NB cause I read elsewhere they had sweetspots. The settings if I remember correctly
where as follows

3.6ish GHz from a stock 2.6
Multiplier at x13
Bus Speed at 277 MHz
Ram at 1108
NB was in the 2200's

HT was below 2000 (don't remember if it was in the 1700's range or 1900's tbh). Only voltage change I made was to the vcore and that was initially set at 1.36ish if I remember correctly. I ran Prime for almost 2 hours w/o errors so I thought we were golden. I played the beta for a day or two while watching CPU temps in HW Monitor. They never left the 40's and the voltage didn't go past 1.36. I noticed that voltage wasn't passing 1.34 while testing in Prime so I decided to drop it a bit. I don't remember what was the next voltage under 1.36 allowed in my bios but I had set it at that and then decided to jump on the beta again. This is when voltages started to pass what it was set at and even 1.36. I was a bit confused at first when I saw that the max voltage had changed while I was playing. I read a bit on a few sites and saw it was normal for voltage to fluctuate a bit above what it was set at so didn't think anything of it at first.

I don't know much about Oc'ing as you can tell by the way I'm describing this now but I was a was a bit surprised when I saw voltages fluctuating from 1.2x to 1.386 as high as I can remember. What worried me was the fact that I saw something on vdroop while looking for info about voltages. I thought there might be instability since tweaking the voltage from 1.36 to a lower voltage. I am honestly not even sure if I was suppose to change the voltage on the vcore or if voltage on something else was suppose to be tweaked XD. It helped at the time and I was running fine until two days ago when I decided to drop the voltage even lower so I wouldn't get into the 1.4x range and hopefully keep my temps even lower w/ less power on them.

I decided to try dropping the vcore to 1.2ish and work my way up to a stable voltage. I got a few BSODs before I made it into Win 7 long enough to start a test on OCCT. I had been using Prime the entire time while running tests in the 1.3x range with no errors. I ran OCCT for the first time and while in the 1.2x range. I got some errors and was about to start checking them out a few mins after the test had stopped but my pc got another BSOD. The pc stopped booting so like with most BSOD's I tried clearing cmos which didn't help. Tested Mobo w/ different cpu, psu and also tried my cpu, and psu on another board. Came to the conclusion that my mobo was shot.

My questions are where did I mess up and why did my mobo die with lower voltages? Could it be the multiple BSODS? I want to fully understand what may have caused the mobo to die if you guys can help me with that. I know that these parts are a bit older but I am contacting MSI Monday to see if I can get my mobo replaced/repaired and don't want to make the same mistakes in the future with this/other setups. Was also thinking of getting a FX 6300 before the board died out on me. Would OC'ing that CPU on this board fry it as well (if I get another one)?

 

[alzerm]

Can I get some help here .-.? I might get the same board back from MSI so if I do I want to make sure I can run my 1035t @3.6ghz and or an OC'ed FX-6300 on this board without it burning out again.

 

[Nitro192]

From what you say, every setting you adjusted is designed to be adjusted and you kept them all within the proper paramaters, just looks like a fried chip or transistor in the board, what kind of fans do you have near or around the motherboard?

You might want to get a refund and go with a new board, if you take a look at the reviews for that board, a large amount of people have gotten ones that die early. Either way get a replacement but don't overclock the ram, keep the ram near it's default paramaters because stressing the ram seems to be a big factor when it comes to frying a chip, that and improper case cooling when overclocking.

I've owned the FX 6300 personally and it does a nice job in overclock scenarios and will perform quite a bit better than the older Phenom II's

 

[alzerm]

From what you say, every setting you adjusted is designed to be adjusted and you kept them all within the proper paramaters, just looks like a fried chip or transistor in the board, what kind of fans do you have near or around the motherboard?

You might want to get a refund and go with a new board, if you take a look at the reviews for that board, a large amount of people have gotten ones that die early. Either way get a replacement but don't overclock the ram, keep the ram near it's default paramaters because stressing the ram seems to be a big factor when it comes to frying a chip, that and improper case cooling when overclocking.

I've owned the FX 6300 personally and it does a nice job in overclock scenarios and will perform quite a bit better than the older Phenom II's

I honestly have like 1 fan in the rear of the case haha. The temps seemed pretty low on the cpu but wasn't really paying much attention to other temps. I hope I get a refund since the person I spoke with said they discontinued them.

I was thinking of upgrading the mobo and cpu. The cpu I had in mind was the FX-6300 and the mobos were these

990FXA-UD3
990FXA-GD65V2
M5A97

I've been basing my mobo choices on this chart.

I heard that the FXA-GD65v2 boards have been having issues with the FX-6300 and 6350 so unsure about that one. I want to know if this setup will be able to handle BF4. If it can't I will look into upgrading the cpu and or gpu. Also want to know if this board (if I get it back) can handle an fx-6300 w/ a possible OC in the future if needed and if not so I can focus first on finding a future proof board (for the fx-6300).

 

[Nitro192]

Yeah where the CPU cooler may do alot for the CPU itself it does nothing for the heatsink on the chipset which is equally as important and alot of cases have at least 2 120mm fans around the board to keep things safe. I have 6 large fans in my case, not just for the LED lights but to keep the board and hard drive at safe temps.

The 990FX board you selected would be perfect, You see the heatsinks on the board, very important. As well it has the AMD 990FX chip which handles overclocking much better. and has developed a reputation for being very reliable when overclocking the FX series. I'd say with that board you'd be pleased. Don't bother paying the extra for the GD65v2 cause all you have to do is flash the bios and it becomes the same thing.

The 990FXA boards both directly support the 6300. It's one of the best chips for overclocking. The FX 6300 should do a decent job on BF4. I used it on BF3 when i owned it and it did extremely well. From what i see from the benchmarks it at least keeps up to a decent rate in BF4. Ofcourse there is better out there it will do the trick for the most part.

 

[alzerm]

Yeah where the CPU cooler may do alot for the CPU itself it does nothing for the heatsink on the chipset which is equally as important and alot of cases have at least 2 120mm fans around the board to keep things safe. I have 6 large fans in my case, not just for the LED lights but to keep the board and hard drive at safe temps.

The 990FX board you selected would be perfect, You see the heatsinks on the board, very important. As well it has the AMD 990FX chip which handles overclocking much better. and has developed a reputation for being very reliable when overclocking the FX series. I'd say with that board you'd be pleased. Don't bother paying the extra for the GD65v2 cause all you have to do is flash the bios and it becomes the same thing.

The 990FXA boards both directly support the 6300. It's one of the best chips for overclocking. The FX 6300 should do a decent job on BF4. I used it on BF3 when i owned it and it did extremely well. From what i see from the benchmarks it at least keeps up to a decent rate in BF4. Ofcourse there is better out there it will do the trick for the most part.

I think the lack of fans fried it since my bus speeds were at 277 lol.

You think on this same board with some fans thrown in and my 1035t OC'ed @3.6 I'd be good to go on BF4?

 

[Nitro192]

Should pull it off, might need to change a few settings here and there but if you tune the graphics down a little and on a decent resolution, you should get playable framerates.