i5 2500k not idling down after OC

mmory

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Jan 27, 2018
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Hello. I have a very old system with 2500k and a msi p67 motherboard. I've never done an OC before so I tried to start with a minor one by going up to 4.2 Ghz. My system is stable (temps are between 30-35C on idle and 50 at load) but the cpu won't ever go down below 3.50 ghz on idle. I literally only changed the multipler in bios, didn't even change the voltage or any other value. If I go back to stock clocks, it idles down as normal but not with this setup. Is there any additional thing I need to do?
 
Solution


I installed XTU and applied the OC from there. It seems to be working now. No reverts after reboot and also idling at 1.6 ghz. Thanks for the help!

Bakhus Mps

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Dec 5, 2014
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Hi, tried opening a task manager to make sure some program isnt using your CPU?
Check C1E, speedstep, C3/C6 states in BIOS make sure you have them on.
Check in windows power settings that CPU is allowed to drop.
Make sure you dont have any "performance" settings enabled in BIOS or windows.
 

mmory

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Jan 27, 2018
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There is no process using the CPU in taskbar, the utilization shows %1-3 on all cores when idle, however the clock isn't going down.
C1E, Speedstep enabled in bios. C-State was enabled but set to Auto. I tried disabling turboboost but it didn't help.
The power setting in windows is balanced, and minimum cpu power was set to 5% as default. Also tried reducing it to 0% and 1%, didn't help.

Like I said, I only changed the multiplier in bios and if I revert to stock clock, it idles at 1.6 Ghz normally. But in overclock it's always at 3.5-3.6 Ghz on idle.
 

mmory

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Jan 27, 2018
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Yes obviously I am waiting for the windows to go idle. I'm doing the exact same things before the overclock, there wasn't any process consuming system resources. It just stays that way.
 

Bakhus Mps

Reputable
Dec 5, 2014
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4,960
Do you have some specific motherboard software installed? The kind you use to OC from windows? You got XTU on startup?
They could apply an OC/performance profile on windows boot up.
EDIT: I remember having this problem at some point an a 4590k, try loading the CPU with IBT, or prime, or XTU, see if goes to idle when you stop it.
 
are you using a base 42x multiplier for the OC? or did you input 42 for each turbo bin? try overclocking each core turbo bin and see if that causes you to throttle down to 1600mhz. for this kind of overclock, it wont matter if you use the base multi or turbo, you will get the same performance.

im assuming you haven't played with vcore yet as you shouldn't... your cpu should likely make it to at least 4.3ghz without touching voltages and svid automatically applying more voltage.
 

mmory

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Jan 27, 2018
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Thank you I guess it worked. I installed MSI control center, set base and all core ratios to 42x and now it idles at 1.6 and goes to 4.2 at load.

But now, since the voltage was set to auto it goes up to 1.336v on load. (idle at 0.992v) Isn't that a bit high for 4.2 ghz? It wasn't like that when I oc'd from bios.

Edit: I manually entered 1.28v on msi control center. But now it always stays at that, even on idle. I guess I have to keep it at auto to make it go down to ~1v when idle.
 

mmory

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Jan 27, 2018
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520
Welp, the overclock that I did from msi control center resets after reboot. I tried doing the same thing in bios but it just won't go down and stays at max frequency all the time. However it works when I do it from the control center but it doesn't retain the oc after reboot. I am not even touching any other setting in bios, all power saving options are enabled but it only works when I do it on software-level.
 

mmory

Prominent
Jan 27, 2018
6
0
520


I installed XTU and applied the OC from there. It seems to be working now. No reverts after reboot and also idling at 1.6 ghz. Thanks for the help!
 
Solution