Overclocking is slowing my PC down?!

[jmsellars1]

Hi guys.

I recently bought a Noctua NH-D14, what a beast. It really is an awesome cooler so i had to do some overclocking on it. So i did and now i have it stable at 4.2Ghz. The temps maxed at 55c after a heavy gaming session, maxed at 65c on stress (Prime 95 for 30 mins). All sounds ok to me. My problem however, the overclock is stable but my PC just feels more sluggish now, games that werent lagging are lagging now and everything just seems to take longer. I thought that maybe it was because it wasn't as stable as i thought but i tried feeding it some more voltage as a quick way to test that theory but it still felt sluggish. I will just do a longer stability test when i get time but my question is: Is this even possible? Does it make any sense or is the issue probably with something else?

 

[deletedcod]

Nope you not going crazy lol,I've noticed this on 3 systems I've had also,itns not always vcore volts ill assume you have only changed vcore and left everything else on default? Can't remember all the voltage settings on the i7 i5 boards but pll voltage raise that a bit to, ur temps will go up slightly to,play around with voltages,not always just vcore that need to be raised

 

[calinkula]

When an OC slows your rig down, I can pretty much guarantee that the OC isn't as stable as you think it is.

Computer hardware is designed to re-request stuff when things don't go smoothly, because that will even happen sometimes when the machine isn't overclocked. So your rig is able to re-process everything and not crash, but it's wasting a lot of time redoing work.

 

[jmsellars1]

So how will i know which voltage to raise? Just trial and error?

 

[geofelt]

You need to find out why you are slowing down.

It is possible that the cpu is downclocking itself when under load.
When stress testing with prime95, also run cpu-z and watch the multiplier. If it drops from the max, you have found your problem.
I suspect that your OC is too high, and perhaps not even necessary for good gaming.

To get some more insight,
run these two tests:

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 70%.
If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

 

[jmsellars1]

I'm not really doing it for better gaming performance at the moment, i just want to find the limits of my CPU. I just raised some of the voltages and ran Prime95 overnight and i got no errors and it peaked at 73c. So i'm going to try some gaming to see if it lags and if not ill try to bring some of those voltages down again to find a good balance.

 

[deletedcod]

when you upped the voltage lag went away right?esp within windows cause thats where you noticed the lag 1st at statup to startup programs also takes bit longer to startup,all i know is it's not your ram
with my systems eachone had a different voltage that i needed to adjust to get lag away,so yeah it's trial and error lol
i thought i was the only one that always had this issue guess not
so now you need to find which component it is that was holding back your OC it takes time but worth it in the end.

 

[jmsellars1]

There is less lag now but i still get big spikes and i'm pretty sure its FPS lag and not high ping. I definitely didnt get that before, i might just try everything at stock and see what happens.

 

[jmsellars1]

I have had everything at stock for a few days now and it still seems sluggish, i am getting big lag spikes and today i got a bluescreen. Didnt quite get chance to see what it said but i caught the word drivers. Does this sound like it could be some sort of driver issue? Possibly GPU drivers since the problems mostly occur in games.