Incorrect Voltages on BIOS

mortuum

Honorable
Mar 28, 2012
37
0
10,530
Hi there folks.

I own a 4670k and a gigabyte Z87X-D3H. The issue is that whenever i manually try to set voltages, they seem to be off. For example if i set the Vcore to 1.200, both the BIOS and AIDA64 will read 1.984. Another time it was 1.982 etc, always around -0.010 from the set voltages.

The same happens with RAM. If i set it on 1.500, it reports 1.496. This also happens when at "Auto" settings. BIOS was updated to both latest release and latest BETA release with no success.

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Another issue, after the latest BIOS update the PC wll randomly reset the time (to something like 1/1/1980) and will disconnect some USB devices.
 
The engineers don't always get the BIOS updates right the first time - if it's buggy, flash it back to the last stable BIOS.
As for the voltages, you might want to take a look at what your offset is set to. You can set it to zero, but you're still not going to get a perfect flat-line. A variation of 16/1000 is not something I'd spend a lot of time worrying about, especially if it's on the negative side and not the positive - the offset gives your system a little bit of play to adjust to changing system conditions and requirements. I'm guessing your offset is at default of .020, so if you set your core voltage at 1.20, you can expect to see your readings within a range of 1.98V to 1.22, depending on the CPU load.
 
I think you may not be able to flash it back to a previous BIOS version - if you try, I think you're going to run into a BIOS protection feature that prevents you from reverting to an older BIOS. I'll look around and see if there's a viable backdoor or workaround.
 

mortuum

Honorable
Mar 28, 2012
37
0
10,530
Volcanoscout thanks for your answer.

Regarding the time reset i found the issue to be the AppCenter software by gigabyte. It has a time-sync feature that does more harm than good. After uninstalling the app (since i couldn't find an option to disable the time-sync) the computer behaves normally.

About the voltages, i was afraid it would be problematic for my overclocking settings. After a bit of research i found something about the "Spread Spectrum" which seems to be a future that reduces EMI from the computer parts. There is no option to completely disable this on my motherboard so i can't be sure if that is the issue.

PS: And yes, the BIOS is protected, it pops an error about it being an older version.
 
Not sure if your board is the same, but when I enable DRAM XMP profile in BIOS, it automatically disables the Spread spectrum feature. You won't see it as an option, but when you hit exit and it asks you if you want to save changes, it'll show up on the confirmation pop-up.
 
IMO, the offset only affects your OC if it pushes your Vs over your designated ceiling. For example, 1.3V should be the hard-ceiling for a Haswell chip. To keep the offset from pushing me over, if offset is at .020, the highest I'll set my voltage for is 1.28V. I could be wrong on how that works, but so far it's worked for me.