Overclock reset by itself

[daniel852]

Hello,

I own a i7-920 (D0 stepping), which I originally OC'd to 3.66 ghz a year or so ago.
Recently I felt that the computer was a bit sluggish and checked cpu-z, and for some reason
the overclock had reset by itself, and was now at 2.8 ghz (not even at the original speed of 2.67)
Is there any reason why this would happen? I also noticed my core voltage was fluctuating
between 1.1v and 1.2v kind of randomly. Does this mean my power supply is not good enough?
I'm using Foxconn Bloodrage X58, OCZ Gold 1600 6gb for ram, EVGA Nvidia gtx 275, 800 w corsair power.

Thanks!

 

[Genny]

Many motherboards that detect failure to boot properly due to an OC will revert back to a stable frequency. You'd need to take a look at your bios to determine what's going on. Did you actually overclock from the bios or with some sort of application?


Your vcore is most likely fluctuating due to speed stepping, which will adjust the voltage and frequency of your processor to accomodate the demand placed on it.

Edit: Now that I think about it...were you checking your frequency at load or idle? If you allow your processor to throttle, it will report a lower frequency when it's not loaded.

 

[buzznut]

Hello,

I own a i7-920 (D0 stepping), which I originally OC'd to 3.66 ghz a year or so ago.
Recently I felt that the computer was a bit sluggish and checked cpu-z, and for some reason
the overclock had reset by itself, and was now at 2.8 ghz (not even at the original speed of 2.67)
Is there any reason why this would happen? I also noticed my core voltage was fluctuating
between 1.1v and 1.2v kind of randomly. Does this mean my power supply is not good enough?
I'm using Foxconn Bloodrage X58, OCZ Gold 1600 6gb for ram, EVGA Nvidia gtx 275, 800 w corsair power.

Thanks!

Hi Daniel
I wouldn't suspect the power supply. I'd check the BIOS settings to see if anything had changed. Why specifically it would spontaneously reset overclock settings I don't know, but sometimes the BIOS may reset for some reason (overheating, power outage, or whatever). Set BIOS to where you had it, and boot into windows to check on those settings.
Another thought, is there any reason it may be throttling, say turbo settings?

 

[daniel852]

I checked the bios setting, and everything had reset to the default settings (stock settings.) So I just tried to re-OC, but for some reason it wouldnt work; the values are correctly saved in BIOS, but when I boot in and check CPU-Z, it's still at stock settings. Any idea why this would be? I checked 3 times, and the values were there when I rebooted into the BIOS. However, the bios settings didnt actually take effect..

 

[Genny]

Did you try loading the CPU? Run prime95 or linx or something of the sort and see if the frequency changes. I'm going to guess speed stepping is enabled and your processor will idle at a much lower frequency than it will max out at.

 

[daniel852]

i have not tried stress testing yet: what you said makes sense cause the multiplier number sticks, its just the FSB. is speed stepping a recommended thing? can you turn it off at all?

 

[daniel852]

Running the test, no change in freq. Still in stock conditions (133.7 mhz bus speed for i7-920).

 

[Genny]

That's odd.... I did a google search and came upon this (it sort of relates to my first post about certain motherboards defaulting to safe settings if it detects are failed boot). It's a couple years old but it's worth a shot and can't hurt.





"I have DS3L and this issue is common.

What happens is that the BIOS is set to error on the side of caution and pretty much assume that any computer reboot or system shutdown which isn't "clean" must be a bad overclock.

To "clear" the lingering memory of this false-positive you have to unplug the PSU from the outlet and set the mobo clear cmos jumper and leave it like that for about a minute.

Then set your clear cmos jumper back to default, then plug the PSU back into the wall. I have confirmed repeatedly that you must unplug the PSU from the wall to make the process work.

The next thing you must do when your system reboots is go into the BIOS and first select the load defaults option, save (F10) and reboot.

Then go back into the BIOS and setup your OC options. Save and reboot.

Now at this point in the timeline there is some kind of reboot/cold-boot counter in the BIOS and if it doesn't register a controlled shutdown followed by a clean cold-boot then it will assume that any subsequent reboots (initiated by you, windows, or a failed OC) are all counted as failed OC's.

So once you set your OC settings and the BIOS does it's mandatory reboot to get out of the BIOS screen the very next thing you need to do whenever the reboot is complete and you are in windows or linux is you must do a hard-shutdown (not a restart). Let the computer sit at least a minute after shutdown before booting again.

This sets whatever register Gigabyte uses for tracking "known good BIOS settings" as your OC settings and now you can initate reboots/restarts and not have the OC get mis-percieved as a bad OC. "

 

[AuroraHD]

Hi everyone, I oc'd my Cpu on my APU using AMD OVERDRIVE and when I reboot, the clock speeds go back to factory Do I need to do this in bios?